Here on our shores a woman died, Caieta,Nurse of Aeneas, and her name still guardsHer resting-place with honor, if such gloryIs comforting to dust.Her funeral moundWas raised, and solemn rites performed; Aeneas,When the deep water quieted, set sail.The wind held fair to the night, and the white moonRevealed the way over the tremulous water.They skimmed the shores of Circe’s island; thereThe sun’s rich daughter made the secret grovesRing with continual singing, and the hallsWere bright with cedar burning through the night,And the strident shuttle ran across the weaving.Off shore, they heard the angry growl of lionsTrying to shake their shackles off, and roaringIn the late darkness, bristling boars, and bearsCoughing in cages, and the great wolves howling.All these were men, whom cruel Circe’s magicChanged into animals. But Neptune keptThe Trojans safely seaward, filled the sails,Carried them safely past these anxious harbors.And now the sea is crimson under the dawn,Aurora glowing in her ruddy car,And the winds go down, and the air is very still,The slow oars struggle in the marble sea,As from the ship Aeneas sees a groveAnd through its midst a pleasant river running,The Tiber, yellow sand and whirling eddy,Down to the sea. Around, above and over,Fly the bright-colored birds, the water-haunters,Charming the air with song. The order given,The Trojans turn their course to land; they enterThe channel and the shade.Help me, Erato,To tell the story: who were kings in Latium,What was the state of things, when that strange armyFirst made for shore? Dear goddess, help the poet!There is much to tell of, the initial trouble,The grim development of war, the battles,The princes in their bravery driven to death,Etruscan cohorts, all the land in the westMarshalled in armor. This is a greater mission,A greater work, that moves me.King LatinusWas an old man, long ruler over a countryBlessed with the calm of peace. He was, they tell us,The son of Faunus; Marica was his mother,A nymph, Laurentian-born. And Faunus’ fatherWas Picus, son of Saturn, the line’s founder.Latinus had no sons; they had been taken,By fate, in their young manhood; an only daughterSurvived to keep the house alive, a girlRipe for a husband. She had many suitorsFrom Latium, from Ausonia. Most handsome,Most blessed in ancestry, was the prince Turnus,Whom the queen mother favored, but the portentsOf the high gods opposed. There was a laurelIn the palace courtyard, tended through the yearsWith sacred reverence, which king Latinus,When first he built the city, had discovered,And hallowed to Apollo, and the peopleWere called Laurentians, from its name. A marvel,So runs the story, occurred here once, a swarmOf bees, that came, loud-humming through clear airTo settle in the branches, a dense jumbleAll through the leafy boughs. “We see a stranger,”The prophet cried, “and a strange column comingOn the same course to the same destination,We see him lord it over the height of the city.”Another time Lavinia was standingBeside her father at the altar, bringingThe holy torch to light the fire, when—horror!—Her hair broke out in flame, sparks leaped and crackledFrom diadem and coronal; her progressWas a shower of fire, as she moved through the palaceRobed with gray smoke and yellow light, a visionFearful and wonderful. She would be glorious,They said, in fame and fortune, but the peopleWere doomed, on her account, to war.LatinusWas troubled by such prophecies, and turnedTo Faunus, his prophetic father, seekingHis oracles for help, in AlbuneanWoodland and forest, where the holy fountainMakes music, breathing vapor from the darkness.Italian men, Oenotrian tribes, in troubleCome here for answers; here the priesthood, bringingThe offerings for sacrifice, by night-timeSlumbers on fleece of victims, seeing visions,Hearing strange voices, meeting gods in converse,Deep down in Acheron. Hither LatinusCame, pilgrim and petitioner; the fleecesWere spread for him, a hundred woolly victims,And as he lay, half waking and half sleeping,From the deep grove he heard a voice:—“My son,Seek not a Latin husband for the princess;Distrust this bridal; stranger sons are comingTo wed our children, to exalt our titleHigh as the stars, and from that marriage offspringWill see, as surely as sun looks down on ocean,The whole world at their feet.” These answers FaunusGave to his son, warnings in night and silence;Latinus may have said no word, but RumorHad spread the news, all up and down the citiesThroughout Ausonia, by the time the TrojansTied up their vessels at the grassy landing.Aeneas and the captains and IulusSprawled in the shade; a feast was spread; they placedThe wheels of hardtack on the ground, and on themMorsels of food, and sliced or quartered apples,And after these were eaten, hunger drove themTo break the disks beneath with teeth and fingers.“Ho!” cries Iulus, “We are eating our tables!”A boy’s joke, nothing more. But the spoken wordMeant something more, and deeper, to Aeneas,An end of hardship. He caught up the saying,Felt the god’s presence. “Hail!” he cried, remembering,“Hail, O my destined land! All hail, ye faithfulGods of our homeland! Here our country lies.Now I remember what Anchises told me:My son, when hunger overtakes you, drivenTo unknown shores, and the food seems so littleYou find it best to gnaw the tables also,There hope for home, there build, however weary,The city walls, the moat, the ditch, the rampart.This must have been that hunger, and the endingOf our misfortunes. Come then, let us gladlyExplore what lands these are, what people hold them.Now pour your cups to Jove, in the light of morning,Pray to Anchises; let the wine againGo round in happiness.” He wreathed his templesWith forest greenery, and made his prayers,To the genius of the place, to the nymphs, to Earth,Oldest of goddesses, to the unknown rivers,To Night, and all her rising stars, to Jove,To Cybele, to his parents, in heaven or Hades.And the almighty father thrice made thunderFrom the clear sky, and a bright cloud blazed above themWith rays of burning light, and a sudden rumorRuns through the Trojan ranks that the day has comeTo build the city due them. Cheered by the omen,They hurry on the feast, set out the wine-bowls,Crown them with garlands.And on the next bright morningAs light streamed over the earth, they took the bearingsFor city and land and coast-line; here they foundNumicius’ fountain, here the river Tiber,Here the brave Latins dwell. A hundred envoys,Picked men of every station, Aeneas ordersTo go to King Latinus’ noble city:They must bear gifts, be crowned with leaves of olive,Appeal for peace. They hurry at his bidding.Aeneas himself marks where the walls shall rise,With a shallow trench, studies the site, and circlesThe settlement, like a camp, with moat and rampart.And his ambassadors had made their journey;They were seeing, now, the Latin towers and roof-tops,And, on suburban plains, young men in training,Breaking their steeds to saddle or car, or drawingThe bow, or hurling darts, daring each otherTo fights and races. A courier, at the gallop,Brought the king word that foreigners were coming,Big men, in strange attire. He bade them welcome,And took his place, high on the throne, before them.That was a mighty palace, rising highOver the city, with a hundred columns;Picus had ruled from there, and the place was holyWith sacred forest and revered tradition.Here kings received the sceptre, here upliftedThe bundled rods of power; here was their senate,Their banquet-hall, their temple; here the eldersMade sacrifice, faced the long line of tables.And here were statues of the ancient fathers,Carved out of cedar, Italus, Sabinus,The planter of the vine, whose image guardedThe curving sickle, and Saturn, and two-faced Janus,All standing in the hallways; and other kingsFrom the very first beginning; and warriors woundedFighting for homeland. On the door were hangingThe consecrated arms; and there were chariots,Trophies of battle, curving axes, helmetsAnd helmet-plumes, bars wrenched from gates, and javelins,And shields, and beaks of captured ships. Quirinus,The god (on earth the hero, Romulus),Was seated, holding the sacred staff of office,Wearing the augur’s robe; and near him Picus,Tamer of horses, whom that lovesick woman,Circe, his wife, had struck with her golden wand,And changed by magic spells into a birdWhose wings were of many colors.In this temple,Latinus, from his father’s throne, gave summons,And the Trojans entered, and he made them greetingIn courteous oration: “Tell me, Trojans—We know, you see, your city and race, your voyageAcross the oceans—tell me your petition.What cause, what need, has brought you here? You have comeOver the blue-green waters to Ausonia.Were you off your course, or driven by storm? MischancesOn the high seas are not unknown to sailors.No matter: you have entered peaceful rivers,You rest in a good harbor. We bid you welcome.Do not avoid our friendship. We must tell youWe Latins come from Saturn; we are peopleWhose sense of justice comes from our own natureAnd the custom of our god. No law, no bondage,Compels our decency. And I remember,Though it was long ago, some story told usBy older men; it seems that Dardanus,An ancestor of yours, was born here, left hereFor towns in Phrygian Ida, and Thracian Samos,Or Samothrace, they call it now. He left here,When he departed, from his Tuscan dwellingCalled Corythus, and now the golden palaceOf starry sky receives him, throned in heaven,A god, who multiplies their count of altars.”Ilioneus answered:—“Son of Faunus,Great king, no tempest and no blackness drove usOver the waves to shelter here; no star,No shore, has fooled us in our voyage.We came on purpose, and with willing hearts,To this your city, exiled from a kingdom,The greatest, once, that ever the sun looked down on.We come from Jove; in Jove as ancestorThe sons of Troy rejoice; our king, Aeneas,Himself is sprung from Jove; it is he who sent usTo seek your threshold. No one in all the world,Whether he lives on the farthest edge of ocean,Whether he lives in the deepest heart of the tropics,No one, I think, but knows how fierce a storm-cloudBroke from Mycenae over the plains of Ida,And how two worlds, Europe and Asia, battledDriven by fate to war. We have been drivenBy that great tidal wave across vast oceans,And now we ask a little home, a harbor—We will do no damage—for our country’s gods,We ask for nothing more than all should have,For air and water. You need not be sorry,We shall do nothing shameful in your kingdom,Your fame, your kindness, as we tell the story,Will grow in greatness. Ausonia, I promise,Will not regret receiving Troy. I swear itOn our captain’s fate and honor, proven oftenIn loyalty, in war. There are many nations,Nations and people both, who have often sought us,Wanted us for their allies—do not scorn usFor coming as petitioners, with garlands,With suppliant words—it was the will of heavenThat drove us to your shores. Dardanus cameFrom here, and over and over again Apollo guides usTo Tiber and Numicia’s sacred fountain.Our king is sending presents, little tokensOf former fortune, relics and remaindersRescued from Troy on fire. This gold AnchisesUsed when he poured libations at the altar,This sceptre and this diadem were Priam’s,Who wore these robes, the work of Trojan women,When he gave laws to the assembled people.”Latinus, at his words, was grave; he heldHis gaze downcast, but his anxious eyes kept turning.It was not the crimson color, nor Priam’s sceptre,That moved him so; he was thinking of his daughter,Her marriage, and the oracle of Faunus.This one might be the man, this stranger, comingFrom a far-off land, might be his son, a rulerCalled, by the fates, to share his power, to fatherIllustrious children, masters of the world.He spoke, in gladness:—“Bless, O gods, our projectAnd your own augury! It will be given,O Trojan, as you ask. I do not scornThe gifts you bring. Never, while I am ruling,Shall you be lacking fruitful land in plenty,And Troy’s abundance shall be yours forever.And as for king Aeneas, if you bring usTrue tidings of his longing for our friendship,Our hospitality, and our alliance,Let him appear in person, let him neverShrink from our friendly gaze. To King LatinusIt will be pact and covenant to meet him,To take him by the hand. Give him my answer:I have a daughter; prodigies from heavenInnumerable, and my father’s warnings,Delivered through his oracle, forbid meTo give my daughter to a native husband.They tell me that my son-to-be is comingFrom foreign shores, to raise our name to heaven.Such is the prophecy they make for Latium.Your king, I think, must be the man they promise,If I have any sense of divination.He is the one I choose.”And he brought horses,The pick of his stables, out of all his hundreds,Assigned them to the Trojans in due order,Swift runners they were, caparisoned with crimson,With saddle-cloths of gold, and golden haltersSwung at their shoulders, and the bits were golden.He chose a chariot for Aeneas; with itTwo stallions breathing fire, immortal horsesSprung from the stock which Circe, in her cunning,Had stolen from the sun, her father, and bred themTo her own mares. The Trojans rode back happyWith gifts and peace and welcome from Latinus.And here was Juno coming back from Argos,Riding the air, and fierce as ever, seeing,As far away as Sicily and Pachynus,Aeneas and the Trojan fleet rejoicing.She saw them building homes, she saw them trustingThe friendly land, she saw their ships forsaken.She stopped, she tossed her head, in hurt and hatred,Speaking, with none to listen:—“There they are,The race I hate, the fates that fight my own.They could not die on Sigean fields; they could notBe captured, and stay captured. Troy went down,It seems, in fire, and they rose from the ashes.Armies and flame were nothing; they found the way.Whereas my power, no doubt, lies weak and weary,I have hated them enough, I am tired of hating,I have earned my rest. Or have I? I dared to followThose exiles over the water with deadly hatred,Used up all threats of sea and sky against them,And what good did it do? Scylla, Charybdis,The Syrtes, all availed me nothing. TiberShelters them in his channel now, in safety.What do they care for me, or the threats of ocean?Mars could destroy the giant race of Lapiths,Jupiter put a curse on CalydonTo soothe Diana’s anger; what had either,Calydon or the Lapiths, done to meritThe vengeance of the gods? But I, great queenOf heaven, wife of Jove, I keep enduring,Dare everything, turn everywhere, for nothing—I am beaten by Aeneas! So, if my powerFalls short of greatness, I must try another’s,Seek aid where I can find it. If I cannotBend Heaven, I can raise Hell. It will not be given,—I know, I know—to keep him from his kingdom,To keep him from his bride: Lavinia, Latium,Will come to him in time. It is permittedTo keep that time far off. It is permittedTo strike their people down. It will cost them something,Their precious father and son. As for the bride,Bloodshed will be her dowry, and BellonaMatron of honor. Hecuba bore one firebrand,And Venus’ issue shall be such another,A funeral torch for Troy re-born.”She cameEarthward, with that, and summoned, in her anger,One of the evil goddesses, Allecto,Dweller in Hell’s dark shadows, sorrow-bringer,Lover of gloom and war and plot and hatred.Even her father hates her, even her sisters,She takes so many forms, such savage guises,Her hair a black and tangled nest of serpents.And Juno whets the knife-edge of her passion:—“Daughter of Night, grant me a boon, a service,To keep my pride and honor undefeated.Stop it, this Trojan swindle of LatinusWith marriages, this ravage of his kingdom!You have the power: when brothers love each otherYou know the way to arm them, set them fighting,You can turn houses upside down with malice,Bring under one roof the lash, the funeral torches,You have a thousand names of evil-doing,A thousand ways and means. Invent, imagine,Contrive—break up the peace, sow seeds of warfare,Let arms be what they want; in the same momentLet arms be what they seize.”Therewith Allecto,Infected with her Gorgon poison, travelledTo Latium and the palace, where the queen,Amata, brooded, womanly resentmentBurning within her heart, for Turnus’ marriage,And, fuel on fire, the coming of the Trojans.From her own dark hair, Allecto pulled one serpentMeant for the queen, her intimate heart, her bosom,Corruption, evil, frenzy, for the household.Between the robe and the smooth breasts the serpentWent gliding deep, unseen, unfelt; the womanReceived the viperous menace. The snake grew larger,Became a collar of gold, became a ribbonWound through the hair, entwining, sliding smoothlyOver the limbs, mercurial poison, workingWith slow infection, no great passionate fury,So that the queen, at first, spoke low and softly,As mothers do, protesting to LatinusAnd weeping for her daughter’s Trojan marriage:—“Must she be given, my lord, to Trojan exiles?Have you no pity for her, for yourself,No pity for a mother? He will desert us,This faithless pirate, with our child as booty,At the first turn of the wind. That was the way—Remember?—the Phrygian shepherd came to SpartaAnd went away with Leda’s daughter, Helen.A solemn pledge—does that amount to nothing?You loved your people once; you were bound to Turnus.Our son must be a stranger; Faunus says so.If Faunus speaks, so be it. I remind youAll lands, not ours, are foreign; and prince Turnus,By the letter of the oracle, an alien.Trace back his ancestry—Acrisius’ daughterFounded his line, and what could be more foreignThan the heart of Greece, Mycenae?”But she foundHer words were vain: Latinus had decided,She saw she could not move him. And the poisonBy now had taken hold, a wild excitementCoursing the veins; her bones were turned to water;Poor queen, there was no limit to her raging,Streeling, one end of the city to another.You know how schoolboys, when a top is spinning,Snap at it with a whiplash, in a circleAround an empty court, and keep it going,Wondering at the way it keeps on whirling,Driven by blows in this or that direction,So, through the midst of cities and proud people,Amata drives, is driven. Madness and guilt upon her,She flies to the mountains, tries to hide her daughterDeep in the woods, acts like a drunken woman,Cries, over and over, “This girl is meant for Bacchus,And not for any Trojans, only BacchusIs worthy of her; she honors him in dancing,Carries his wand, and keeps for him the sacredLock of her hair!” And Rumor, flying over,Excites the other wives to leave their houses.They come with maddened hearts, with their hair flying,Their necks bare to the winds; they shriek to the skies,Brandish the vine-bound spears, are dressed as tigers,Circle and wheel around their queen, whose frenzyTosses the burning pine-brand high, in gestureTo suit the marriage-hymn: “O Latin mothers,Listen, wherever you are: if any careFor poor Amata moves you, or any senseOf any mother’s rights, come join the revels,Loosen the hair, exult!” Allecto drives herTo the dens of the beasts; her eyes are stained and bloodshot,Rolled upward to the white.So, thought Allecto,That should suffice: the palace of Latinus,And all the king intended, in confusion.She flew on dusky wings, a gloomy goddess,To the bold Rutulian’s walls, that city, founded,Men say, by Danaë and Acrisian settlers,A place once called Ardea, and it keepsIts ancient name; its glory has departed.And here, in his high palace, Turnus slumbered.In the dead of night, Allecto changed her features,Her limbs, transformed her glowering, her grimness,To an old woman’s wrinkles, bound a ribbonAround gray hair, worked in a wreath of olive,And she was Calybe then, an aged priestessOf Juno’s temple, and so she came to Turnus:—“Turnus! Can this be borne, so many laborsWasted, the kingdom given to the Trojans?The king denies you all, the bride, the dowryBought with your blood; his heir must be a stranger.They mock you; never mind. Go forth, protect them,Save them from dangers, see what thanks they give you,Lay low the Tuscan ranks, hold over the LatinsThe shield of peace. I tell you, Juno told me,And you so calmly slumbering all through it,Rise up, be doing something, and be happyTo see the young men armed, and get them goingOut of the gates! There are ships to burn, and captainsTo set on fire: the mighty gods command it.Let King Latinus know it, let him reckonWith Turnus in arms, unless he keeps his promise.”But Turnus, smiling at her, answered:—“Mother,You tell me nothing new; I know a fleetHas come to Tiber’s waters; do not scare meWith fears imagined; Juno, I am certain,Has not forgotten me. Your age, old woman,Worn-down, truth-weary, harries you with worries,Makes you ridiculous, a busybody,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings.Back to the temple, mind your proper business,Leave war and peace where they belong, with warriors.”Allecto blazed with anger: Turnus, speaking,Was suddenly afraid, so wild her features,So fierce her flaming eyes, the snakes of the FuryHissing disaster. She shoves him back; he falters,Tries to say more; she plies her whip, she doublesThe rising serpents, and her wild mouth cries,“See me for what I am, worn down, truth-weary,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings!See what I am, see where I come from, bringingWar, war and death, from the Grim Sisters’ home.”She flung the firebrand at him, torch and terrorSmoking with lurid light. The body, sweating,Is torn from sleep; he cries for arms, he seeksArms at his bedside, through the hallways, lustingFor sword and steel, war’s wicked frenzy mountingTo rampant rage. Even so a cauldron bubblesWhen fire burns hot beneath, and water seethes,Stirs, shifts, breaks out in boiling, and the cloudOf steam goes toward the sky. The peace is broken.The call to arms is given; let the captainsMarch on Latinus, drive the foe from Latium,Protect the fatherland. Turnus is coming;No matter who they are, Trojans or Latins,Turnus will take them on. And his example,His frenzied prayer, shook his Rutulian comrades,All eagerness for war. They all admired him,For handsome bearing, youth, or deeds of courage,Or kingly birth: boldness engenders boldness.Allecto, meanwhile, took a new direction,To the Trojans now; she had found a place for mischiefAlong the shore, she had seen Iulus hunting;His hounds were driven to madness; the scent was rank,Hot in their nostrils; away they went, the packIn full cry after the deer, and that pursuitWas the first cause of trouble; that first kindledThe countryside to violence. That deer,A handsome animal, with mighty antlers,Belonged, a pet, to Tyrrhus and his children,Who had raised him from a fawn. Tyrrhus, the father,Was keeper of the royal herds, and Silvia,The daughter, used to comb the beast, and wash him,Twine garlands in his horns, caress and love him,And he, grown used to her, would wander freelyOver the woods and meadows, and come homeAt nightfall to the friendly door and stable.This was the deer Iulus’ hounds had startedFloating downstream, reclining by the riverFor coolness’ sake, where young Ascanius, burningFor a huntsman’s praise, saw him, and loosed the arrowThat pierced the belly and side, so the poor creatureCame wounded to the house he knew, and moaningCrept into his stall, bleeding, and like a personAsking for help, filled all the house with sorrow.First Silvia came, beating her arms, and others,Summoned for help, equipped themselves for vengeance,With Allecto lurking in the silent forest.A knotted club, a sharpened stake, a firebrand,Whatever comes to hand will serve, when angerIs looking for a weapon. Tyrrhus calls them,They are warriors now, not farmers; they leave the logging,The quartered oak, the wedges; in breathless angerTyrrhus grabs up the axe. A perfect momentFor the goddess on her watch-tower!—she comes flyingTo the stable roof; she sounds the shepherds’ call,Straining her hellish voice on the curved hornTill grove and woodland echo. Diana’s lakeHears, and Velinus’ fountain, and white Nar,The spring of sulphur; and mothers, in their panic,Hold their young children close. But swift to the sound,The dire alarum, came the farmers, running;They call no man their master; they snatch up weapons.And on the other side the youth of the TrojansPour through the open gates to help Iulus.They are drawn up now; no more a rustic quarrelWith stakes and clubs, the double-bladed steelDecides the issue, swords are drawn, the harvestIs black and spiky; bronze defies the sunlight,Tossing its luster cloudward. As waves at seaAt first are little whitecaps under the wind,And slowly turn to billows, and then great combers,So rose the swell of war. Young Almo fell,Eldest of Tyrrhus’ sons; a whirring arrow,Piercing the throat, choked him in his own blood.And many around him fell, among them one,A good old man, Galaesus, who had come forwardTo plead for peace, and died; he was most justOf all Ausonia’s men, and wealthy, countingFive flocks of sheep and cattle; a hundred ploughsFurrowed his acres.So they fought together,And neither won,—Allecto had kept her promise:She had soaked the war in blood, she had made beginningOf death in battle. She left the western land,She soared to Juno in heaven, proud of her triumph:—“There it is for you, perfect, war createdFrom disagreement! Tell them to join in friendship,Let them make treaties, now my hand has spatteredThe Trojans with Ausonian blood! And stillI can do more, if you desire it: citiesNear-by, I can plague to war with rumors, burn themWith wild desire for battle, bring in alliesFrom everywhere; I will sow the land with armies.”But Juno answered:—“That is plenty, thank you;They can not stop it now; man battles man;Fresh blood is on the arms that chance first gave.Now let them stage that bridal feast, that wedding,Venus’ distinguished son, and king Latinus!Olympus’ ruler would be most unwillingTo let you roam thus freely in the heavens;Be gone from here; whatever more is needed,I will attend to.” So spoke Saturn’s daughter,And the serpents hissed as the Fury raised her wings,Flew up, swooped down, to Hell. Under high hillsIn Italy’s heart, there lies a vale, Ampsanctus,Well known in many lands. Dark forests hide itOn every side, and in its very centreA roaring torrent over the rocks goes brawling,And there is a cavern here, a breathing holeFor terrible Dis, and a gorge, where Acheron riverOpens the deadly jaws; and here AllectoSank out of sight, relieving earth and heaven.And Juno gave the war the final touches.The shepherds came to the city from the battle,Bearing young Almo, slain, and old Galaesus,His peaceful face defiled; they cry to the gods,They call on King Latinus. Turnus is there,As they cry murder, fuel to their fire,Making their terror double:the kingdom fallsTo the men of Troy, he shouts;our blood is tainted;I am degraded here!And the Latin mothers,Trooping the pathless woods in Bacchic orgies,Amata’s cause being their cause, assembleFrom every side; it is Mars for whom they clamor,Not Bacchus any more. And all the people,Against the omens, against the will of the gods,Cry out for wicked war. They fight each other,Almost, to siege and storm Latinus’ palace.He is a rock in the sea; he stands like a sea-rockWhen a crash of water comes, and it is steadfastAgainst the howl of the waves, and the roar is useless,And the sea-weed, flung at the side, goes dripping back.But even so Latinus could not conquerTheir blind determination. Things were goingAs Juno willed. He invoked the empty air,He invoked the gods, in vain. “Alas, we are broken!We are broken by fate, we are swept away by storm.You will pay for this, you will pay for it with bloodshed,O my poor people! And punishment is waiting,Turnus, for you; you will find it very bitter,And then you will pray, and it will be too late.My rest is won, my voyage almost over;I lose a happy death.” He said no more,Shut himself in his palace, and relinquishedThe reins of power.There was a Latin custom,Cherished, thereafter, by the Alban cities,As now by Rome, great empress—when they rouseThe god of war to battle, against the Getans,Arabians, Hyrcanians, no matter;Whether they march on India, or striveTo win back captured standards from the Parthians,The custom holds. There are twin gates of Mars,Held in both awe and reverence; they are fastenedBy bolts of bronze, a hundred, by the eternalSolidity of iron, and their guardianIs Janus, always watchful at the threshold.These, when the fathers vote for war, the consul,Girt in the dress of Romulus, and beltedGabinian-wise, with his own hand must open,Must swing the portals wide, with his own voiceCry war, and the others follow, and the trumpetsGive tongue in bronze agreement. So LatinusWas called on, by that custom, for announcementOf war against the Trojans, for the openingOf those grim gates. But he refused to touch them,Fled from the task he loathed, hid in the darkness,And Juno, coming from heaven, shoved them openWith her own hand; the turning hinges grated,The iron was loosed for war. And all Ausonia,Listless till then, unmoved, blazed out in fury:On foot they came, on horseback; through the dustThe cry rang outTo arms!They oil the shields,They make the javelins shine, they hone the axes,They love the sight of banner, the sound of trumpet.In five great cities, Tibur, Crustumerium,Antemnae, and Atina, and Ardea,Strong towns, and proud, and turret-crowned, they forgeNew weapons on their anvils; they carve out helmets,Make wicker covers for the shields; they hammerBreastplates of bronze, or greaves of pliant silver.They beat their ploughshares into swords; the furnaceGives a new temper to the blades of their fathers.Alarum sounds, password is whispered. HelmetsCome down from the wall; the yoke weighs down the horses;A man puts on his armor, picks up his shield,Buckles his sword to his side.Open the mountain,Muses, release the song!—what kings were hurriedHot-haste to war, who filled their battle-lines,How Italy blossomed with men, and burned with weapons,For you remember, Muses, and you have powerTo make us all remember, deeds that rumor,Far-off and faint, brings to our recollection.First from the Tuscan shore came fierce Mezentius,Arming his columns, the man who scorned the gods.Beside him, handsomer than any other,Save only Turnus, stood his son, young Lausus,Tamer of horses, huntsman, from Agylla,Leading a thousand warriors, a vain mission;He was worthy, Lausus, of a happier fortuneThan being his father’s subject; he was worthyOf a better father.Near them, AventinusParaded over the field his horses, victorsIn many a fight, his chariots, crowned with palm-leaves.His shield portrayed a hundred snakes, and the Hydra,Serpent-surrounded, a token of his father,For this was Hercules’ son, whose manly beautyWas like his father’s. His mother was a priestess,Rhea, whom Hercules had known when, victor,He had slain Geryon, reached Laurentian country,And bathed Iberian cattle in the Tiber.His birthplace was the forest on the hillsideThat men call Aventine; his birth was secret.His men go into battle with pikes and javelins,Fight with the tapering sabre, and a curiousSabellan type of dart. And AventinusStrode out on foot, the skin of a lion swingingAcross his shoulders; the bristling mane was shaggy,And the head rose above it like a helmet,With the white teeth bared and snarling. So he enteredThe royal halls, and everything about himGave sign of Hercules.Next came two brothers,Twins from the town of Tibur, named CatillusAnd Coras; through the throng of spears they enteredAs Centaurs, born from clouds, come down the mountains,Crashing through wood and thicket in their onrush.There was Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste,A king who, legend says, was born to VulcanIn a country that raised cattle, found, untended,Beside a campfire. His men were country fellowsFrom every here and there, from steep Praeneste,From Juno’s Gabian fields, from the cold river,The Anio, Anagnia, Amasenus,Hernician rocks, and dewy stream and meadow.Some of them had no arms, no shields, no chariots,Their weapons, for the most part, being slingshotsAnd bullets of dull lead, but some of them carriedA couple of darts apiece, and for their headgearWore tawny wolfskins; they kept the left foot bare,They wore a rawhide shinguard on the other.And there was Messapus, a son of Neptune,A tamer of horses, a man whom none in battleCould hurt with fire or sword; his people cameTo war from years and years of peaceful living,Men from Fescennium, Soracte’s mountains,Flavinian fields, Ciminus’ lake and hillside,Capena’s groves. They sang as they were marching,Hailing their king in measured step and rhythm,Their music like the sound of swans, bound home,White through white cloud, as they return from feeding,And the long throats pour echoing music overMeadow and river. You would not think of warriors,Marshalled in bronze, in that array, but a cloudOf raucous birds, driven from sea to shore.Clausus, a host in himself, led a great hostOf Sabine blood; the Claudian tribe at RomeOf Sabine origin owes to him its name.His followers came from many cities, Cures,Eretum, Amiternum, and Mutusca,Renowned for olives, Tetrica, Nomentum,Velinus’ countryside and Mount Severus,Casperia and Foruli; many riversHad served their thirst, the Fabaris, the Tiber,Himella’s stream, chill Nursia, and Allia,A name of evil omen: they came like wavesRolling to Africa’s coast when fierce OrionSinks in the wintry ocean, as thick as grainTurned brown in early summer on Hermus’ plainOr Lydia’s yellow acres. The earth tremblesUnder their feet; the shields clang on their shoulders.And there was Agamemnon’s son, Halaesus,A hater of the Trojan name; for TurnusHe yoked his steeds, he brought a thousand peoples,Men who hoe Massic vineyards, men from hills,Men from the plains; men from Volturnus’ river,Men from the town of Cales; Oscan people,Saticulan hosts. Their weapon is the javelin,Wound with the whiplash; an old-fashioned shieldCovers their left; for work, close-in, they carrySharp-bladed scimitars.And OebalusWas with him, son of Telon and Sebethis,Born by that nymph when Telon, old, was rulingOver Capri, a realm his son extendedOver Sarrastrian tribes, over the plainland,The Sarnus waters; Batulum, Celemna,Rufrae, were all his towns, and high Abella,Rich in its apple-trees. These warriors carriedSome kind of German dart; they used for headgearBark of the cork-tree: shields and swords were bronze.From Nersae Ufens came, a man distinguishedIn arms and reputation; his tribe were huntsmen,Farmers, after a fashion; they wore their armorEven when ploughing. Rugged soil they lived on;They loved to raid and live on what they raided.Archippus, the Marruvians’ king, had sentA warrior-priest, Umbro, renowned in courage.His helmet carried olive leaves; he knewThe arts of charming serpents and of healingTheir venomous wounds; he had no magic, later,Against the Trojan spear-point, and the herbs,Gathered on Marsian hills, availed him littleIn days of war; his native groves and watersMourned his untimely death.And Virbius came,Aricia’s handsome son, raised in the groves,The marshy shores around Diana’s altar,Most rich, most gracious. Hippolytus, his father,Had once been slain, the story runs, a victimOf Phaedra’s hate and passion, and the vengeanceHis father took; he had been drawn and quarteredBy Theseus’ stallions, but Apollo’s magic,Diana’s love, had given him life againUnder the stars and the fair light of heaven,And Jupiter, angry that any mortalShould rise from shadow to life, struck down his healer,Apollo’s son, with a fearful blast of thunder,Hippolytus being hidden by DianaIn a secret place, where the nymph Egeria tendedHer sacred grove; there he lived out, alone,In the Italian woods, the days of his lifeWith no renown; he took another name,Virbius, meaning,Twice a man; no horsesEver came near that grove, that holy temple,Seeing that horses on an earlier shoreHad overturned his chariot in panicAnd been his death, driven to panic terrorBy monsters from the ocean. But his son,Virbius the younger, had no fear of horses,Driving and riding to war.Among the foremost,Taller than any, by a head, was Turnus,Gripping the sword; his helmet, triple-crested,Had a Chimaera on it, breathing fireFrom gaping jaws; the bloodier the battle,The hotter the fight, the redder that reflection,And on his shield, in gold, the story of Io,The heifer, once a girl; you could see her guardian,Argus, the hundred-eyed, and her poor father,The river-god with streaming urn, Inachus.And a cloud of warriors on foot behind him,Columns with shields, the Argives and Auruncans,Rutulians, old Sicanians, LabiciansWith colored shields, Sacranians, men from Tiber,Ploughmen of Circe’s ridge, soldiers from Anxur,Sons of Feronia, that land of greennessWhere Satura’s marsh lies dark, and the cold riverRuns seaward through the valley.And last of allCamilla rode, leading her troops on horseback,Her columns bright with bronze, a soldieress,A woman whose hands were never trained to weaving,To the use of wool, to basketry, a girlAs tough in war as any, in speed afootSwifter than wind. She could go flying overThe tips of the ears of the wheat, and never bruise them,So light her way, she could run on the lift of the wave,Dry-shod; and they came from the houses and fields to wonder,To gaze at her going, young men, and matrons thronging,Wide-eyed and with parted lips, at the glory of royal crimsonOver her shoulders’ smoothness, the clasp of the goldIn her hair, and the way she carried the Lycian quiver,The heft of the pastoral myrtle, the wand with the spearpoint.
Here on our shores a woman died, Caieta,Nurse of Aeneas, and her name still guardsHer resting-place with honor, if such gloryIs comforting to dust.Her funeral moundWas raised, and solemn rites performed; Aeneas,When the deep water quieted, set sail.The wind held fair to the night, and the white moonRevealed the way over the tremulous water.They skimmed the shores of Circe’s island; thereThe sun’s rich daughter made the secret grovesRing with continual singing, and the hallsWere bright with cedar burning through the night,And the strident shuttle ran across the weaving.Off shore, they heard the angry growl of lionsTrying to shake their shackles off, and roaringIn the late darkness, bristling boars, and bearsCoughing in cages, and the great wolves howling.All these were men, whom cruel Circe’s magicChanged into animals. But Neptune keptThe Trojans safely seaward, filled the sails,Carried them safely past these anxious harbors.And now the sea is crimson under the dawn,Aurora glowing in her ruddy car,And the winds go down, and the air is very still,The slow oars struggle in the marble sea,As from the ship Aeneas sees a groveAnd through its midst a pleasant river running,The Tiber, yellow sand and whirling eddy,Down to the sea. Around, above and over,Fly the bright-colored birds, the water-haunters,Charming the air with song. The order given,The Trojans turn their course to land; they enterThe channel and the shade.Help me, Erato,To tell the story: who were kings in Latium,What was the state of things, when that strange armyFirst made for shore? Dear goddess, help the poet!There is much to tell of, the initial trouble,The grim development of war, the battles,The princes in their bravery driven to death,Etruscan cohorts, all the land in the westMarshalled in armor. This is a greater mission,A greater work, that moves me.King LatinusWas an old man, long ruler over a countryBlessed with the calm of peace. He was, they tell us,The son of Faunus; Marica was his mother,A nymph, Laurentian-born. And Faunus’ fatherWas Picus, son of Saturn, the line’s founder.Latinus had no sons; they had been taken,By fate, in their young manhood; an only daughterSurvived to keep the house alive, a girlRipe for a husband. She had many suitorsFrom Latium, from Ausonia. Most handsome,Most blessed in ancestry, was the prince Turnus,Whom the queen mother favored, but the portentsOf the high gods opposed. There was a laurelIn the palace courtyard, tended through the yearsWith sacred reverence, which king Latinus,When first he built the city, had discovered,And hallowed to Apollo, and the peopleWere called Laurentians, from its name. A marvel,So runs the story, occurred here once, a swarmOf bees, that came, loud-humming through clear airTo settle in the branches, a dense jumbleAll through the leafy boughs. “We see a stranger,”The prophet cried, “and a strange column comingOn the same course to the same destination,We see him lord it over the height of the city.”Another time Lavinia was standingBeside her father at the altar, bringingThe holy torch to light the fire, when—horror!—Her hair broke out in flame, sparks leaped and crackledFrom diadem and coronal; her progressWas a shower of fire, as she moved through the palaceRobed with gray smoke and yellow light, a visionFearful and wonderful. She would be glorious,They said, in fame and fortune, but the peopleWere doomed, on her account, to war.LatinusWas troubled by such prophecies, and turnedTo Faunus, his prophetic father, seekingHis oracles for help, in AlbuneanWoodland and forest, where the holy fountainMakes music, breathing vapor from the darkness.Italian men, Oenotrian tribes, in troubleCome here for answers; here the priesthood, bringingThe offerings for sacrifice, by night-timeSlumbers on fleece of victims, seeing visions,Hearing strange voices, meeting gods in converse,Deep down in Acheron. Hither LatinusCame, pilgrim and petitioner; the fleecesWere spread for him, a hundred woolly victims,And as he lay, half waking and half sleeping,From the deep grove he heard a voice:—“My son,Seek not a Latin husband for the princess;Distrust this bridal; stranger sons are comingTo wed our children, to exalt our titleHigh as the stars, and from that marriage offspringWill see, as surely as sun looks down on ocean,The whole world at their feet.” These answers FaunusGave to his son, warnings in night and silence;Latinus may have said no word, but RumorHad spread the news, all up and down the citiesThroughout Ausonia, by the time the TrojansTied up their vessels at the grassy landing.Aeneas and the captains and IulusSprawled in the shade; a feast was spread; they placedThe wheels of hardtack on the ground, and on themMorsels of food, and sliced or quartered apples,And after these were eaten, hunger drove themTo break the disks beneath with teeth and fingers.“Ho!” cries Iulus, “We are eating our tables!”A boy’s joke, nothing more. But the spoken wordMeant something more, and deeper, to Aeneas,An end of hardship. He caught up the saying,Felt the god’s presence. “Hail!” he cried, remembering,“Hail, O my destined land! All hail, ye faithfulGods of our homeland! Here our country lies.Now I remember what Anchises told me:My son, when hunger overtakes you, drivenTo unknown shores, and the food seems so littleYou find it best to gnaw the tables also,There hope for home, there build, however weary,The city walls, the moat, the ditch, the rampart.This must have been that hunger, and the endingOf our misfortunes. Come then, let us gladlyExplore what lands these are, what people hold them.Now pour your cups to Jove, in the light of morning,Pray to Anchises; let the wine againGo round in happiness.” He wreathed his templesWith forest greenery, and made his prayers,To the genius of the place, to the nymphs, to Earth,Oldest of goddesses, to the unknown rivers,To Night, and all her rising stars, to Jove,To Cybele, to his parents, in heaven or Hades.And the almighty father thrice made thunderFrom the clear sky, and a bright cloud blazed above themWith rays of burning light, and a sudden rumorRuns through the Trojan ranks that the day has comeTo build the city due them. Cheered by the omen,They hurry on the feast, set out the wine-bowls,Crown them with garlands.And on the next bright morningAs light streamed over the earth, they took the bearingsFor city and land and coast-line; here they foundNumicius’ fountain, here the river Tiber,Here the brave Latins dwell. A hundred envoys,Picked men of every station, Aeneas ordersTo go to King Latinus’ noble city:They must bear gifts, be crowned with leaves of olive,Appeal for peace. They hurry at his bidding.Aeneas himself marks where the walls shall rise,With a shallow trench, studies the site, and circlesThe settlement, like a camp, with moat and rampart.And his ambassadors had made their journey;They were seeing, now, the Latin towers and roof-tops,And, on suburban plains, young men in training,Breaking their steeds to saddle or car, or drawingThe bow, or hurling darts, daring each otherTo fights and races. A courier, at the gallop,Brought the king word that foreigners were coming,Big men, in strange attire. He bade them welcome,And took his place, high on the throne, before them.That was a mighty palace, rising highOver the city, with a hundred columns;Picus had ruled from there, and the place was holyWith sacred forest and revered tradition.Here kings received the sceptre, here upliftedThe bundled rods of power; here was their senate,Their banquet-hall, their temple; here the eldersMade sacrifice, faced the long line of tables.And here were statues of the ancient fathers,Carved out of cedar, Italus, Sabinus,The planter of the vine, whose image guardedThe curving sickle, and Saturn, and two-faced Janus,All standing in the hallways; and other kingsFrom the very first beginning; and warriors woundedFighting for homeland. On the door were hangingThe consecrated arms; and there were chariots,Trophies of battle, curving axes, helmetsAnd helmet-plumes, bars wrenched from gates, and javelins,And shields, and beaks of captured ships. Quirinus,The god (on earth the hero, Romulus),Was seated, holding the sacred staff of office,Wearing the augur’s robe; and near him Picus,Tamer of horses, whom that lovesick woman,Circe, his wife, had struck with her golden wand,And changed by magic spells into a birdWhose wings were of many colors.In this temple,Latinus, from his father’s throne, gave summons,And the Trojans entered, and he made them greetingIn courteous oration: “Tell me, Trojans—We know, you see, your city and race, your voyageAcross the oceans—tell me your petition.What cause, what need, has brought you here? You have comeOver the blue-green waters to Ausonia.Were you off your course, or driven by storm? MischancesOn the high seas are not unknown to sailors.No matter: you have entered peaceful rivers,You rest in a good harbor. We bid you welcome.Do not avoid our friendship. We must tell youWe Latins come from Saturn; we are peopleWhose sense of justice comes from our own natureAnd the custom of our god. No law, no bondage,Compels our decency. And I remember,Though it was long ago, some story told usBy older men; it seems that Dardanus,An ancestor of yours, was born here, left hereFor towns in Phrygian Ida, and Thracian Samos,Or Samothrace, they call it now. He left here,When he departed, from his Tuscan dwellingCalled Corythus, and now the golden palaceOf starry sky receives him, throned in heaven,A god, who multiplies their count of altars.”Ilioneus answered:—“Son of Faunus,Great king, no tempest and no blackness drove usOver the waves to shelter here; no star,No shore, has fooled us in our voyage.We came on purpose, and with willing hearts,To this your city, exiled from a kingdom,The greatest, once, that ever the sun looked down on.We come from Jove; in Jove as ancestorThe sons of Troy rejoice; our king, Aeneas,Himself is sprung from Jove; it is he who sent usTo seek your threshold. No one in all the world,Whether he lives on the farthest edge of ocean,Whether he lives in the deepest heart of the tropics,No one, I think, but knows how fierce a storm-cloudBroke from Mycenae over the plains of Ida,And how two worlds, Europe and Asia, battledDriven by fate to war. We have been drivenBy that great tidal wave across vast oceans,And now we ask a little home, a harbor—We will do no damage—for our country’s gods,We ask for nothing more than all should have,For air and water. You need not be sorry,We shall do nothing shameful in your kingdom,Your fame, your kindness, as we tell the story,Will grow in greatness. Ausonia, I promise,Will not regret receiving Troy. I swear itOn our captain’s fate and honor, proven oftenIn loyalty, in war. There are many nations,Nations and people both, who have often sought us,Wanted us for their allies—do not scorn usFor coming as petitioners, with garlands,With suppliant words—it was the will of heavenThat drove us to your shores. Dardanus cameFrom here, and over and over again Apollo guides usTo Tiber and Numicia’s sacred fountain.Our king is sending presents, little tokensOf former fortune, relics and remaindersRescued from Troy on fire. This gold AnchisesUsed when he poured libations at the altar,This sceptre and this diadem were Priam’s,Who wore these robes, the work of Trojan women,When he gave laws to the assembled people.”Latinus, at his words, was grave; he heldHis gaze downcast, but his anxious eyes kept turning.It was not the crimson color, nor Priam’s sceptre,That moved him so; he was thinking of his daughter,Her marriage, and the oracle of Faunus.This one might be the man, this stranger, comingFrom a far-off land, might be his son, a rulerCalled, by the fates, to share his power, to fatherIllustrious children, masters of the world.He spoke, in gladness:—“Bless, O gods, our projectAnd your own augury! It will be given,O Trojan, as you ask. I do not scornThe gifts you bring. Never, while I am ruling,Shall you be lacking fruitful land in plenty,And Troy’s abundance shall be yours forever.And as for king Aeneas, if you bring usTrue tidings of his longing for our friendship,Our hospitality, and our alliance,Let him appear in person, let him neverShrink from our friendly gaze. To King LatinusIt will be pact and covenant to meet him,To take him by the hand. Give him my answer:I have a daughter; prodigies from heavenInnumerable, and my father’s warnings,Delivered through his oracle, forbid meTo give my daughter to a native husband.They tell me that my son-to-be is comingFrom foreign shores, to raise our name to heaven.Such is the prophecy they make for Latium.Your king, I think, must be the man they promise,If I have any sense of divination.He is the one I choose.”And he brought horses,The pick of his stables, out of all his hundreds,Assigned them to the Trojans in due order,Swift runners they were, caparisoned with crimson,With saddle-cloths of gold, and golden haltersSwung at their shoulders, and the bits were golden.He chose a chariot for Aeneas; with itTwo stallions breathing fire, immortal horsesSprung from the stock which Circe, in her cunning,Had stolen from the sun, her father, and bred themTo her own mares. The Trojans rode back happyWith gifts and peace and welcome from Latinus.And here was Juno coming back from Argos,Riding the air, and fierce as ever, seeing,As far away as Sicily and Pachynus,Aeneas and the Trojan fleet rejoicing.She saw them building homes, she saw them trustingThe friendly land, she saw their ships forsaken.She stopped, she tossed her head, in hurt and hatred,Speaking, with none to listen:—“There they are,The race I hate, the fates that fight my own.They could not die on Sigean fields; they could notBe captured, and stay captured. Troy went down,It seems, in fire, and they rose from the ashes.Armies and flame were nothing; they found the way.Whereas my power, no doubt, lies weak and weary,I have hated them enough, I am tired of hating,I have earned my rest. Or have I? I dared to followThose exiles over the water with deadly hatred,Used up all threats of sea and sky against them,And what good did it do? Scylla, Charybdis,The Syrtes, all availed me nothing. TiberShelters them in his channel now, in safety.What do they care for me, or the threats of ocean?Mars could destroy the giant race of Lapiths,Jupiter put a curse on CalydonTo soothe Diana’s anger; what had either,Calydon or the Lapiths, done to meritThe vengeance of the gods? But I, great queenOf heaven, wife of Jove, I keep enduring,Dare everything, turn everywhere, for nothing—I am beaten by Aeneas! So, if my powerFalls short of greatness, I must try another’s,Seek aid where I can find it. If I cannotBend Heaven, I can raise Hell. It will not be given,—I know, I know—to keep him from his kingdom,To keep him from his bride: Lavinia, Latium,Will come to him in time. It is permittedTo keep that time far off. It is permittedTo strike their people down. It will cost them something,Their precious father and son. As for the bride,Bloodshed will be her dowry, and BellonaMatron of honor. Hecuba bore one firebrand,And Venus’ issue shall be such another,A funeral torch for Troy re-born.”She cameEarthward, with that, and summoned, in her anger,One of the evil goddesses, Allecto,Dweller in Hell’s dark shadows, sorrow-bringer,Lover of gloom and war and plot and hatred.Even her father hates her, even her sisters,She takes so many forms, such savage guises,Her hair a black and tangled nest of serpents.And Juno whets the knife-edge of her passion:—“Daughter of Night, grant me a boon, a service,To keep my pride and honor undefeated.Stop it, this Trojan swindle of LatinusWith marriages, this ravage of his kingdom!You have the power: when brothers love each otherYou know the way to arm them, set them fighting,You can turn houses upside down with malice,Bring under one roof the lash, the funeral torches,You have a thousand names of evil-doing,A thousand ways and means. Invent, imagine,Contrive—break up the peace, sow seeds of warfare,Let arms be what they want; in the same momentLet arms be what they seize.”Therewith Allecto,Infected with her Gorgon poison, travelledTo Latium and the palace, where the queen,Amata, brooded, womanly resentmentBurning within her heart, for Turnus’ marriage,And, fuel on fire, the coming of the Trojans.From her own dark hair, Allecto pulled one serpentMeant for the queen, her intimate heart, her bosom,Corruption, evil, frenzy, for the household.Between the robe and the smooth breasts the serpentWent gliding deep, unseen, unfelt; the womanReceived the viperous menace. The snake grew larger,Became a collar of gold, became a ribbonWound through the hair, entwining, sliding smoothlyOver the limbs, mercurial poison, workingWith slow infection, no great passionate fury,So that the queen, at first, spoke low and softly,As mothers do, protesting to LatinusAnd weeping for her daughter’s Trojan marriage:—“Must she be given, my lord, to Trojan exiles?Have you no pity for her, for yourself,No pity for a mother? He will desert us,This faithless pirate, with our child as booty,At the first turn of the wind. That was the way—Remember?—the Phrygian shepherd came to SpartaAnd went away with Leda’s daughter, Helen.A solemn pledge—does that amount to nothing?You loved your people once; you were bound to Turnus.Our son must be a stranger; Faunus says so.If Faunus speaks, so be it. I remind youAll lands, not ours, are foreign; and prince Turnus,By the letter of the oracle, an alien.Trace back his ancestry—Acrisius’ daughterFounded his line, and what could be more foreignThan the heart of Greece, Mycenae?”But she foundHer words were vain: Latinus had decided,She saw she could not move him. And the poisonBy now had taken hold, a wild excitementCoursing the veins; her bones were turned to water;Poor queen, there was no limit to her raging,Streeling, one end of the city to another.You know how schoolboys, when a top is spinning,Snap at it with a whiplash, in a circleAround an empty court, and keep it going,Wondering at the way it keeps on whirling,Driven by blows in this or that direction,So, through the midst of cities and proud people,Amata drives, is driven. Madness and guilt upon her,She flies to the mountains, tries to hide her daughterDeep in the woods, acts like a drunken woman,Cries, over and over, “This girl is meant for Bacchus,And not for any Trojans, only BacchusIs worthy of her; she honors him in dancing,Carries his wand, and keeps for him the sacredLock of her hair!” And Rumor, flying over,Excites the other wives to leave their houses.They come with maddened hearts, with their hair flying,Their necks bare to the winds; they shriek to the skies,Brandish the vine-bound spears, are dressed as tigers,Circle and wheel around their queen, whose frenzyTosses the burning pine-brand high, in gestureTo suit the marriage-hymn: “O Latin mothers,Listen, wherever you are: if any careFor poor Amata moves you, or any senseOf any mother’s rights, come join the revels,Loosen the hair, exult!” Allecto drives herTo the dens of the beasts; her eyes are stained and bloodshot,Rolled upward to the white.So, thought Allecto,That should suffice: the palace of Latinus,And all the king intended, in confusion.She flew on dusky wings, a gloomy goddess,To the bold Rutulian’s walls, that city, founded,Men say, by Danaë and Acrisian settlers,A place once called Ardea, and it keepsIts ancient name; its glory has departed.And here, in his high palace, Turnus slumbered.In the dead of night, Allecto changed her features,Her limbs, transformed her glowering, her grimness,To an old woman’s wrinkles, bound a ribbonAround gray hair, worked in a wreath of olive,And she was Calybe then, an aged priestessOf Juno’s temple, and so she came to Turnus:—“Turnus! Can this be borne, so many laborsWasted, the kingdom given to the Trojans?The king denies you all, the bride, the dowryBought with your blood; his heir must be a stranger.They mock you; never mind. Go forth, protect them,Save them from dangers, see what thanks they give you,Lay low the Tuscan ranks, hold over the LatinsThe shield of peace. I tell you, Juno told me,And you so calmly slumbering all through it,Rise up, be doing something, and be happyTo see the young men armed, and get them goingOut of the gates! There are ships to burn, and captainsTo set on fire: the mighty gods command it.Let King Latinus know it, let him reckonWith Turnus in arms, unless he keeps his promise.”But Turnus, smiling at her, answered:—“Mother,You tell me nothing new; I know a fleetHas come to Tiber’s waters; do not scare meWith fears imagined; Juno, I am certain,Has not forgotten me. Your age, old woman,Worn-down, truth-weary, harries you with worries,Makes you ridiculous, a busybody,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings.Back to the temple, mind your proper business,Leave war and peace where they belong, with warriors.”Allecto blazed with anger: Turnus, speaking,Was suddenly afraid, so wild her features,So fierce her flaming eyes, the snakes of the FuryHissing disaster. She shoves him back; he falters,Tries to say more; she plies her whip, she doublesThe rising serpents, and her wild mouth cries,“See me for what I am, worn down, truth-weary,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings!See what I am, see where I come from, bringingWar, war and death, from the Grim Sisters’ home.”She flung the firebrand at him, torch and terrorSmoking with lurid light. The body, sweating,Is torn from sleep; he cries for arms, he seeksArms at his bedside, through the hallways, lustingFor sword and steel, war’s wicked frenzy mountingTo rampant rage. Even so a cauldron bubblesWhen fire burns hot beneath, and water seethes,Stirs, shifts, breaks out in boiling, and the cloudOf steam goes toward the sky. The peace is broken.The call to arms is given; let the captainsMarch on Latinus, drive the foe from Latium,Protect the fatherland. Turnus is coming;No matter who they are, Trojans or Latins,Turnus will take them on. And his example,His frenzied prayer, shook his Rutulian comrades,All eagerness for war. They all admired him,For handsome bearing, youth, or deeds of courage,Or kingly birth: boldness engenders boldness.Allecto, meanwhile, took a new direction,To the Trojans now; she had found a place for mischiefAlong the shore, she had seen Iulus hunting;His hounds were driven to madness; the scent was rank,Hot in their nostrils; away they went, the packIn full cry after the deer, and that pursuitWas the first cause of trouble; that first kindledThe countryside to violence. That deer,A handsome animal, with mighty antlers,Belonged, a pet, to Tyrrhus and his children,Who had raised him from a fawn. Tyrrhus, the father,Was keeper of the royal herds, and Silvia,The daughter, used to comb the beast, and wash him,Twine garlands in his horns, caress and love him,And he, grown used to her, would wander freelyOver the woods and meadows, and come homeAt nightfall to the friendly door and stable.This was the deer Iulus’ hounds had startedFloating downstream, reclining by the riverFor coolness’ sake, where young Ascanius, burningFor a huntsman’s praise, saw him, and loosed the arrowThat pierced the belly and side, so the poor creatureCame wounded to the house he knew, and moaningCrept into his stall, bleeding, and like a personAsking for help, filled all the house with sorrow.First Silvia came, beating her arms, and others,Summoned for help, equipped themselves for vengeance,With Allecto lurking in the silent forest.A knotted club, a sharpened stake, a firebrand,Whatever comes to hand will serve, when angerIs looking for a weapon. Tyrrhus calls them,They are warriors now, not farmers; they leave the logging,The quartered oak, the wedges; in breathless angerTyrrhus grabs up the axe. A perfect momentFor the goddess on her watch-tower!—she comes flyingTo the stable roof; she sounds the shepherds’ call,Straining her hellish voice on the curved hornTill grove and woodland echo. Diana’s lakeHears, and Velinus’ fountain, and white Nar,The spring of sulphur; and mothers, in their panic,Hold their young children close. But swift to the sound,The dire alarum, came the farmers, running;They call no man their master; they snatch up weapons.And on the other side the youth of the TrojansPour through the open gates to help Iulus.They are drawn up now; no more a rustic quarrelWith stakes and clubs, the double-bladed steelDecides the issue, swords are drawn, the harvestIs black and spiky; bronze defies the sunlight,Tossing its luster cloudward. As waves at seaAt first are little whitecaps under the wind,And slowly turn to billows, and then great combers,So rose the swell of war. Young Almo fell,Eldest of Tyrrhus’ sons; a whirring arrow,Piercing the throat, choked him in his own blood.And many around him fell, among them one,A good old man, Galaesus, who had come forwardTo plead for peace, and died; he was most justOf all Ausonia’s men, and wealthy, countingFive flocks of sheep and cattle; a hundred ploughsFurrowed his acres.So they fought together,And neither won,—Allecto had kept her promise:She had soaked the war in blood, she had made beginningOf death in battle. She left the western land,She soared to Juno in heaven, proud of her triumph:—“There it is for you, perfect, war createdFrom disagreement! Tell them to join in friendship,Let them make treaties, now my hand has spatteredThe Trojans with Ausonian blood! And stillI can do more, if you desire it: citiesNear-by, I can plague to war with rumors, burn themWith wild desire for battle, bring in alliesFrom everywhere; I will sow the land with armies.”But Juno answered:—“That is plenty, thank you;They can not stop it now; man battles man;Fresh blood is on the arms that chance first gave.Now let them stage that bridal feast, that wedding,Venus’ distinguished son, and king Latinus!Olympus’ ruler would be most unwillingTo let you roam thus freely in the heavens;Be gone from here; whatever more is needed,I will attend to.” So spoke Saturn’s daughter,And the serpents hissed as the Fury raised her wings,Flew up, swooped down, to Hell. Under high hillsIn Italy’s heart, there lies a vale, Ampsanctus,Well known in many lands. Dark forests hide itOn every side, and in its very centreA roaring torrent over the rocks goes brawling,And there is a cavern here, a breathing holeFor terrible Dis, and a gorge, where Acheron riverOpens the deadly jaws; and here AllectoSank out of sight, relieving earth and heaven.And Juno gave the war the final touches.The shepherds came to the city from the battle,Bearing young Almo, slain, and old Galaesus,His peaceful face defiled; they cry to the gods,They call on King Latinus. Turnus is there,As they cry murder, fuel to their fire,Making their terror double:the kingdom fallsTo the men of Troy, he shouts;our blood is tainted;I am degraded here!And the Latin mothers,Trooping the pathless woods in Bacchic orgies,Amata’s cause being their cause, assembleFrom every side; it is Mars for whom they clamor,Not Bacchus any more. And all the people,Against the omens, against the will of the gods,Cry out for wicked war. They fight each other,Almost, to siege and storm Latinus’ palace.He is a rock in the sea; he stands like a sea-rockWhen a crash of water comes, and it is steadfastAgainst the howl of the waves, and the roar is useless,And the sea-weed, flung at the side, goes dripping back.But even so Latinus could not conquerTheir blind determination. Things were goingAs Juno willed. He invoked the empty air,He invoked the gods, in vain. “Alas, we are broken!We are broken by fate, we are swept away by storm.You will pay for this, you will pay for it with bloodshed,O my poor people! And punishment is waiting,Turnus, for you; you will find it very bitter,And then you will pray, and it will be too late.My rest is won, my voyage almost over;I lose a happy death.” He said no more,Shut himself in his palace, and relinquishedThe reins of power.There was a Latin custom,Cherished, thereafter, by the Alban cities,As now by Rome, great empress—when they rouseThe god of war to battle, against the Getans,Arabians, Hyrcanians, no matter;Whether they march on India, or striveTo win back captured standards from the Parthians,The custom holds. There are twin gates of Mars,Held in both awe and reverence; they are fastenedBy bolts of bronze, a hundred, by the eternalSolidity of iron, and their guardianIs Janus, always watchful at the threshold.These, when the fathers vote for war, the consul,Girt in the dress of Romulus, and beltedGabinian-wise, with his own hand must open,Must swing the portals wide, with his own voiceCry war, and the others follow, and the trumpetsGive tongue in bronze agreement. So LatinusWas called on, by that custom, for announcementOf war against the Trojans, for the openingOf those grim gates. But he refused to touch them,Fled from the task he loathed, hid in the darkness,And Juno, coming from heaven, shoved them openWith her own hand; the turning hinges grated,The iron was loosed for war. And all Ausonia,Listless till then, unmoved, blazed out in fury:On foot they came, on horseback; through the dustThe cry rang outTo arms!They oil the shields,They make the javelins shine, they hone the axes,They love the sight of banner, the sound of trumpet.In five great cities, Tibur, Crustumerium,Antemnae, and Atina, and Ardea,Strong towns, and proud, and turret-crowned, they forgeNew weapons on their anvils; they carve out helmets,Make wicker covers for the shields; they hammerBreastplates of bronze, or greaves of pliant silver.They beat their ploughshares into swords; the furnaceGives a new temper to the blades of their fathers.Alarum sounds, password is whispered. HelmetsCome down from the wall; the yoke weighs down the horses;A man puts on his armor, picks up his shield,Buckles his sword to his side.Open the mountain,Muses, release the song!—what kings were hurriedHot-haste to war, who filled their battle-lines,How Italy blossomed with men, and burned with weapons,For you remember, Muses, and you have powerTo make us all remember, deeds that rumor,Far-off and faint, brings to our recollection.First from the Tuscan shore came fierce Mezentius,Arming his columns, the man who scorned the gods.Beside him, handsomer than any other,Save only Turnus, stood his son, young Lausus,Tamer of horses, huntsman, from Agylla,Leading a thousand warriors, a vain mission;He was worthy, Lausus, of a happier fortuneThan being his father’s subject; he was worthyOf a better father.Near them, AventinusParaded over the field his horses, victorsIn many a fight, his chariots, crowned with palm-leaves.His shield portrayed a hundred snakes, and the Hydra,Serpent-surrounded, a token of his father,For this was Hercules’ son, whose manly beautyWas like his father’s. His mother was a priestess,Rhea, whom Hercules had known when, victor,He had slain Geryon, reached Laurentian country,And bathed Iberian cattle in the Tiber.His birthplace was the forest on the hillsideThat men call Aventine; his birth was secret.His men go into battle with pikes and javelins,Fight with the tapering sabre, and a curiousSabellan type of dart. And AventinusStrode out on foot, the skin of a lion swingingAcross his shoulders; the bristling mane was shaggy,And the head rose above it like a helmet,With the white teeth bared and snarling. So he enteredThe royal halls, and everything about himGave sign of Hercules.Next came two brothers,Twins from the town of Tibur, named CatillusAnd Coras; through the throng of spears they enteredAs Centaurs, born from clouds, come down the mountains,Crashing through wood and thicket in their onrush.There was Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste,A king who, legend says, was born to VulcanIn a country that raised cattle, found, untended,Beside a campfire. His men were country fellowsFrom every here and there, from steep Praeneste,From Juno’s Gabian fields, from the cold river,The Anio, Anagnia, Amasenus,Hernician rocks, and dewy stream and meadow.Some of them had no arms, no shields, no chariots,Their weapons, for the most part, being slingshotsAnd bullets of dull lead, but some of them carriedA couple of darts apiece, and for their headgearWore tawny wolfskins; they kept the left foot bare,They wore a rawhide shinguard on the other.And there was Messapus, a son of Neptune,A tamer of horses, a man whom none in battleCould hurt with fire or sword; his people cameTo war from years and years of peaceful living,Men from Fescennium, Soracte’s mountains,Flavinian fields, Ciminus’ lake and hillside,Capena’s groves. They sang as they were marching,Hailing their king in measured step and rhythm,Their music like the sound of swans, bound home,White through white cloud, as they return from feeding,And the long throats pour echoing music overMeadow and river. You would not think of warriors,Marshalled in bronze, in that array, but a cloudOf raucous birds, driven from sea to shore.Clausus, a host in himself, led a great hostOf Sabine blood; the Claudian tribe at RomeOf Sabine origin owes to him its name.His followers came from many cities, Cures,Eretum, Amiternum, and Mutusca,Renowned for olives, Tetrica, Nomentum,Velinus’ countryside and Mount Severus,Casperia and Foruli; many riversHad served their thirst, the Fabaris, the Tiber,Himella’s stream, chill Nursia, and Allia,A name of evil omen: they came like wavesRolling to Africa’s coast when fierce OrionSinks in the wintry ocean, as thick as grainTurned brown in early summer on Hermus’ plainOr Lydia’s yellow acres. The earth tremblesUnder their feet; the shields clang on their shoulders.And there was Agamemnon’s son, Halaesus,A hater of the Trojan name; for TurnusHe yoked his steeds, he brought a thousand peoples,Men who hoe Massic vineyards, men from hills,Men from the plains; men from Volturnus’ river,Men from the town of Cales; Oscan people,Saticulan hosts. Their weapon is the javelin,Wound with the whiplash; an old-fashioned shieldCovers their left; for work, close-in, they carrySharp-bladed scimitars.And OebalusWas with him, son of Telon and Sebethis,Born by that nymph when Telon, old, was rulingOver Capri, a realm his son extendedOver Sarrastrian tribes, over the plainland,The Sarnus waters; Batulum, Celemna,Rufrae, were all his towns, and high Abella,Rich in its apple-trees. These warriors carriedSome kind of German dart; they used for headgearBark of the cork-tree: shields and swords were bronze.From Nersae Ufens came, a man distinguishedIn arms and reputation; his tribe were huntsmen,Farmers, after a fashion; they wore their armorEven when ploughing. Rugged soil they lived on;They loved to raid and live on what they raided.Archippus, the Marruvians’ king, had sentA warrior-priest, Umbro, renowned in courage.His helmet carried olive leaves; he knewThe arts of charming serpents and of healingTheir venomous wounds; he had no magic, later,Against the Trojan spear-point, and the herbs,Gathered on Marsian hills, availed him littleIn days of war; his native groves and watersMourned his untimely death.And Virbius came,Aricia’s handsome son, raised in the groves,The marshy shores around Diana’s altar,Most rich, most gracious. Hippolytus, his father,Had once been slain, the story runs, a victimOf Phaedra’s hate and passion, and the vengeanceHis father took; he had been drawn and quarteredBy Theseus’ stallions, but Apollo’s magic,Diana’s love, had given him life againUnder the stars and the fair light of heaven,And Jupiter, angry that any mortalShould rise from shadow to life, struck down his healer,Apollo’s son, with a fearful blast of thunder,Hippolytus being hidden by DianaIn a secret place, where the nymph Egeria tendedHer sacred grove; there he lived out, alone,In the Italian woods, the days of his lifeWith no renown; he took another name,Virbius, meaning,Twice a man; no horsesEver came near that grove, that holy temple,Seeing that horses on an earlier shoreHad overturned his chariot in panicAnd been his death, driven to panic terrorBy monsters from the ocean. But his son,Virbius the younger, had no fear of horses,Driving and riding to war.Among the foremost,Taller than any, by a head, was Turnus,Gripping the sword; his helmet, triple-crested,Had a Chimaera on it, breathing fireFrom gaping jaws; the bloodier the battle,The hotter the fight, the redder that reflection,And on his shield, in gold, the story of Io,The heifer, once a girl; you could see her guardian,Argus, the hundred-eyed, and her poor father,The river-god with streaming urn, Inachus.And a cloud of warriors on foot behind him,Columns with shields, the Argives and Auruncans,Rutulians, old Sicanians, LabiciansWith colored shields, Sacranians, men from Tiber,Ploughmen of Circe’s ridge, soldiers from Anxur,Sons of Feronia, that land of greennessWhere Satura’s marsh lies dark, and the cold riverRuns seaward through the valley.And last of allCamilla rode, leading her troops on horseback,Her columns bright with bronze, a soldieress,A woman whose hands were never trained to weaving,To the use of wool, to basketry, a girlAs tough in war as any, in speed afootSwifter than wind. She could go flying overThe tips of the ears of the wheat, and never bruise them,So light her way, she could run on the lift of the wave,Dry-shod; and they came from the houses and fields to wonder,To gaze at her going, young men, and matrons thronging,Wide-eyed and with parted lips, at the glory of royal crimsonOver her shoulders’ smoothness, the clasp of the goldIn her hair, and the way she carried the Lycian quiver,The heft of the pastoral myrtle, the wand with the spearpoint.
Here on our shores a woman died, Caieta,Nurse of Aeneas, and her name still guardsHer resting-place with honor, if such gloryIs comforting to dust.
Her funeral moundWas raised, and solemn rites performed; Aeneas,When the deep water quieted, set sail.The wind held fair to the night, and the white moonRevealed the way over the tremulous water.They skimmed the shores of Circe’s island; thereThe sun’s rich daughter made the secret grovesRing with continual singing, and the hallsWere bright with cedar burning through the night,And the strident shuttle ran across the weaving.Off shore, they heard the angry growl of lionsTrying to shake their shackles off, and roaringIn the late darkness, bristling boars, and bearsCoughing in cages, and the great wolves howling.All these were men, whom cruel Circe’s magicChanged into animals. But Neptune keptThe Trojans safely seaward, filled the sails,Carried them safely past these anxious harbors.
And now the sea is crimson under the dawn,Aurora glowing in her ruddy car,And the winds go down, and the air is very still,The slow oars struggle in the marble sea,As from the ship Aeneas sees a groveAnd through its midst a pleasant river running,The Tiber, yellow sand and whirling eddy,Down to the sea. Around, above and over,Fly the bright-colored birds, the water-haunters,Charming the air with song. The order given,The Trojans turn their course to land; they enterThe channel and the shade.
Help me, Erato,To tell the story: who were kings in Latium,What was the state of things, when that strange armyFirst made for shore? Dear goddess, help the poet!There is much to tell of, the initial trouble,The grim development of war, the battles,The princes in their bravery driven to death,Etruscan cohorts, all the land in the westMarshalled in armor. This is a greater mission,A greater work, that moves me.
King LatinusWas an old man, long ruler over a countryBlessed with the calm of peace. He was, they tell us,The son of Faunus; Marica was his mother,A nymph, Laurentian-born. And Faunus’ fatherWas Picus, son of Saturn, the line’s founder.Latinus had no sons; they had been taken,By fate, in their young manhood; an only daughterSurvived to keep the house alive, a girlRipe for a husband. She had many suitorsFrom Latium, from Ausonia. Most handsome,Most blessed in ancestry, was the prince Turnus,Whom the queen mother favored, but the portentsOf the high gods opposed. There was a laurelIn the palace courtyard, tended through the yearsWith sacred reverence, which king Latinus,When first he built the city, had discovered,And hallowed to Apollo, and the peopleWere called Laurentians, from its name. A marvel,So runs the story, occurred here once, a swarmOf bees, that came, loud-humming through clear airTo settle in the branches, a dense jumbleAll through the leafy boughs. “We see a stranger,”The prophet cried, “and a strange column comingOn the same course to the same destination,We see him lord it over the height of the city.”Another time Lavinia was standingBeside her father at the altar, bringingThe holy torch to light the fire, when—horror!—Her hair broke out in flame, sparks leaped and crackledFrom diadem and coronal; her progressWas a shower of fire, as she moved through the palaceRobed with gray smoke and yellow light, a visionFearful and wonderful. She would be glorious,They said, in fame and fortune, but the peopleWere doomed, on her account, to war.
LatinusWas troubled by such prophecies, and turnedTo Faunus, his prophetic father, seekingHis oracles for help, in AlbuneanWoodland and forest, where the holy fountainMakes music, breathing vapor from the darkness.Italian men, Oenotrian tribes, in troubleCome here for answers; here the priesthood, bringingThe offerings for sacrifice, by night-timeSlumbers on fleece of victims, seeing visions,Hearing strange voices, meeting gods in converse,Deep down in Acheron. Hither LatinusCame, pilgrim and petitioner; the fleecesWere spread for him, a hundred woolly victims,And as he lay, half waking and half sleeping,From the deep grove he heard a voice:—“My son,Seek not a Latin husband for the princess;Distrust this bridal; stranger sons are comingTo wed our children, to exalt our titleHigh as the stars, and from that marriage offspringWill see, as surely as sun looks down on ocean,The whole world at their feet.” These answers FaunusGave to his son, warnings in night and silence;Latinus may have said no word, but RumorHad spread the news, all up and down the citiesThroughout Ausonia, by the time the TrojansTied up their vessels at the grassy landing.
Aeneas and the captains and IulusSprawled in the shade; a feast was spread; they placedThe wheels of hardtack on the ground, and on themMorsels of food, and sliced or quartered apples,And after these were eaten, hunger drove themTo break the disks beneath with teeth and fingers.“Ho!” cries Iulus, “We are eating our tables!”A boy’s joke, nothing more. But the spoken wordMeant something more, and deeper, to Aeneas,An end of hardship. He caught up the saying,Felt the god’s presence. “Hail!” he cried, remembering,“Hail, O my destined land! All hail, ye faithfulGods of our homeland! Here our country lies.Now I remember what Anchises told me:My son, when hunger overtakes you, drivenTo unknown shores, and the food seems so littleYou find it best to gnaw the tables also,There hope for home, there build, however weary,The city walls, the moat, the ditch, the rampart.This must have been that hunger, and the endingOf our misfortunes. Come then, let us gladlyExplore what lands these are, what people hold them.Now pour your cups to Jove, in the light of morning,Pray to Anchises; let the wine againGo round in happiness.” He wreathed his templesWith forest greenery, and made his prayers,To the genius of the place, to the nymphs, to Earth,Oldest of goddesses, to the unknown rivers,To Night, and all her rising stars, to Jove,To Cybele, to his parents, in heaven or Hades.And the almighty father thrice made thunderFrom the clear sky, and a bright cloud blazed above themWith rays of burning light, and a sudden rumorRuns through the Trojan ranks that the day has comeTo build the city due them. Cheered by the omen,They hurry on the feast, set out the wine-bowls,Crown them with garlands.
And on the next bright morningAs light streamed over the earth, they took the bearingsFor city and land and coast-line; here they foundNumicius’ fountain, here the river Tiber,Here the brave Latins dwell. A hundred envoys,Picked men of every station, Aeneas ordersTo go to King Latinus’ noble city:They must bear gifts, be crowned with leaves of olive,Appeal for peace. They hurry at his bidding.Aeneas himself marks where the walls shall rise,With a shallow trench, studies the site, and circlesThe settlement, like a camp, with moat and rampart.And his ambassadors had made their journey;They were seeing, now, the Latin towers and roof-tops,And, on suburban plains, young men in training,Breaking their steeds to saddle or car, or drawingThe bow, or hurling darts, daring each otherTo fights and races. A courier, at the gallop,Brought the king word that foreigners were coming,Big men, in strange attire. He bade them welcome,And took his place, high on the throne, before them.
That was a mighty palace, rising highOver the city, with a hundred columns;Picus had ruled from there, and the place was holyWith sacred forest and revered tradition.Here kings received the sceptre, here upliftedThe bundled rods of power; here was their senate,Their banquet-hall, their temple; here the eldersMade sacrifice, faced the long line of tables.And here were statues of the ancient fathers,Carved out of cedar, Italus, Sabinus,The planter of the vine, whose image guardedThe curving sickle, and Saturn, and two-faced Janus,All standing in the hallways; and other kingsFrom the very first beginning; and warriors woundedFighting for homeland. On the door were hangingThe consecrated arms; and there were chariots,Trophies of battle, curving axes, helmetsAnd helmet-plumes, bars wrenched from gates, and javelins,And shields, and beaks of captured ships. Quirinus,The god (on earth the hero, Romulus),Was seated, holding the sacred staff of office,Wearing the augur’s robe; and near him Picus,Tamer of horses, whom that lovesick woman,Circe, his wife, had struck with her golden wand,And changed by magic spells into a birdWhose wings were of many colors.
In this temple,Latinus, from his father’s throne, gave summons,And the Trojans entered, and he made them greetingIn courteous oration: “Tell me, Trojans—We know, you see, your city and race, your voyageAcross the oceans—tell me your petition.What cause, what need, has brought you here? You have comeOver the blue-green waters to Ausonia.Were you off your course, or driven by storm? MischancesOn the high seas are not unknown to sailors.No matter: you have entered peaceful rivers,You rest in a good harbor. We bid you welcome.Do not avoid our friendship. We must tell youWe Latins come from Saturn; we are peopleWhose sense of justice comes from our own natureAnd the custom of our god. No law, no bondage,Compels our decency. And I remember,Though it was long ago, some story told usBy older men; it seems that Dardanus,An ancestor of yours, was born here, left hereFor towns in Phrygian Ida, and Thracian Samos,Or Samothrace, they call it now. He left here,When he departed, from his Tuscan dwellingCalled Corythus, and now the golden palaceOf starry sky receives him, throned in heaven,A god, who multiplies their count of altars.”
Ilioneus answered:—“Son of Faunus,Great king, no tempest and no blackness drove usOver the waves to shelter here; no star,No shore, has fooled us in our voyage.We came on purpose, and with willing hearts,To this your city, exiled from a kingdom,The greatest, once, that ever the sun looked down on.We come from Jove; in Jove as ancestorThe sons of Troy rejoice; our king, Aeneas,Himself is sprung from Jove; it is he who sent usTo seek your threshold. No one in all the world,Whether he lives on the farthest edge of ocean,Whether he lives in the deepest heart of the tropics,No one, I think, but knows how fierce a storm-cloudBroke from Mycenae over the plains of Ida,And how two worlds, Europe and Asia, battledDriven by fate to war. We have been drivenBy that great tidal wave across vast oceans,And now we ask a little home, a harbor—We will do no damage—for our country’s gods,We ask for nothing more than all should have,For air and water. You need not be sorry,We shall do nothing shameful in your kingdom,Your fame, your kindness, as we tell the story,Will grow in greatness. Ausonia, I promise,Will not regret receiving Troy. I swear itOn our captain’s fate and honor, proven oftenIn loyalty, in war. There are many nations,Nations and people both, who have often sought us,Wanted us for their allies—do not scorn usFor coming as petitioners, with garlands,With suppliant words—it was the will of heavenThat drove us to your shores. Dardanus cameFrom here, and over and over again Apollo guides usTo Tiber and Numicia’s sacred fountain.Our king is sending presents, little tokensOf former fortune, relics and remaindersRescued from Troy on fire. This gold AnchisesUsed when he poured libations at the altar,This sceptre and this diadem were Priam’s,Who wore these robes, the work of Trojan women,When he gave laws to the assembled people.”
Latinus, at his words, was grave; he heldHis gaze downcast, but his anxious eyes kept turning.It was not the crimson color, nor Priam’s sceptre,That moved him so; he was thinking of his daughter,Her marriage, and the oracle of Faunus.This one might be the man, this stranger, comingFrom a far-off land, might be his son, a rulerCalled, by the fates, to share his power, to fatherIllustrious children, masters of the world.He spoke, in gladness:—“Bless, O gods, our projectAnd your own augury! It will be given,O Trojan, as you ask. I do not scornThe gifts you bring. Never, while I am ruling,Shall you be lacking fruitful land in plenty,And Troy’s abundance shall be yours forever.And as for king Aeneas, if you bring usTrue tidings of his longing for our friendship,Our hospitality, and our alliance,Let him appear in person, let him neverShrink from our friendly gaze. To King LatinusIt will be pact and covenant to meet him,To take him by the hand. Give him my answer:I have a daughter; prodigies from heavenInnumerable, and my father’s warnings,Delivered through his oracle, forbid meTo give my daughter to a native husband.They tell me that my son-to-be is comingFrom foreign shores, to raise our name to heaven.Such is the prophecy they make for Latium.Your king, I think, must be the man they promise,If I have any sense of divination.He is the one I choose.”
And he brought horses,The pick of his stables, out of all his hundreds,Assigned them to the Trojans in due order,Swift runners they were, caparisoned with crimson,With saddle-cloths of gold, and golden haltersSwung at their shoulders, and the bits were golden.He chose a chariot for Aeneas; with itTwo stallions breathing fire, immortal horsesSprung from the stock which Circe, in her cunning,Had stolen from the sun, her father, and bred themTo her own mares. The Trojans rode back happyWith gifts and peace and welcome from Latinus.
And here was Juno coming back from Argos,Riding the air, and fierce as ever, seeing,As far away as Sicily and Pachynus,Aeneas and the Trojan fleet rejoicing.She saw them building homes, she saw them trustingThe friendly land, she saw their ships forsaken.She stopped, she tossed her head, in hurt and hatred,Speaking, with none to listen:—“There they are,The race I hate, the fates that fight my own.They could not die on Sigean fields; they could notBe captured, and stay captured. Troy went down,It seems, in fire, and they rose from the ashes.Armies and flame were nothing; they found the way.Whereas my power, no doubt, lies weak and weary,I have hated them enough, I am tired of hating,I have earned my rest. Or have I? I dared to followThose exiles over the water with deadly hatred,Used up all threats of sea and sky against them,And what good did it do? Scylla, Charybdis,The Syrtes, all availed me nothing. TiberShelters them in his channel now, in safety.What do they care for me, or the threats of ocean?Mars could destroy the giant race of Lapiths,Jupiter put a curse on CalydonTo soothe Diana’s anger; what had either,Calydon or the Lapiths, done to meritThe vengeance of the gods? But I, great queenOf heaven, wife of Jove, I keep enduring,Dare everything, turn everywhere, for nothing—I am beaten by Aeneas! So, if my powerFalls short of greatness, I must try another’s,Seek aid where I can find it. If I cannotBend Heaven, I can raise Hell. It will not be given,—I know, I know—to keep him from his kingdom,To keep him from his bride: Lavinia, Latium,Will come to him in time. It is permittedTo keep that time far off. It is permittedTo strike their people down. It will cost them something,Their precious father and son. As for the bride,Bloodshed will be her dowry, and BellonaMatron of honor. Hecuba bore one firebrand,And Venus’ issue shall be such another,A funeral torch for Troy re-born.”
She cameEarthward, with that, and summoned, in her anger,One of the evil goddesses, Allecto,Dweller in Hell’s dark shadows, sorrow-bringer,Lover of gloom and war and plot and hatred.Even her father hates her, even her sisters,She takes so many forms, such savage guises,Her hair a black and tangled nest of serpents.And Juno whets the knife-edge of her passion:—“Daughter of Night, grant me a boon, a service,To keep my pride and honor undefeated.Stop it, this Trojan swindle of LatinusWith marriages, this ravage of his kingdom!You have the power: when brothers love each otherYou know the way to arm them, set them fighting,You can turn houses upside down with malice,Bring under one roof the lash, the funeral torches,You have a thousand names of evil-doing,A thousand ways and means. Invent, imagine,Contrive—break up the peace, sow seeds of warfare,Let arms be what they want; in the same momentLet arms be what they seize.”
Therewith Allecto,Infected with her Gorgon poison, travelledTo Latium and the palace, where the queen,Amata, brooded, womanly resentmentBurning within her heart, for Turnus’ marriage,And, fuel on fire, the coming of the Trojans.From her own dark hair, Allecto pulled one serpentMeant for the queen, her intimate heart, her bosom,Corruption, evil, frenzy, for the household.Between the robe and the smooth breasts the serpentWent gliding deep, unseen, unfelt; the womanReceived the viperous menace. The snake grew larger,Became a collar of gold, became a ribbonWound through the hair, entwining, sliding smoothlyOver the limbs, mercurial poison, workingWith slow infection, no great passionate fury,So that the queen, at first, spoke low and softly,As mothers do, protesting to LatinusAnd weeping for her daughter’s Trojan marriage:—“Must she be given, my lord, to Trojan exiles?Have you no pity for her, for yourself,No pity for a mother? He will desert us,This faithless pirate, with our child as booty,At the first turn of the wind. That was the way—Remember?—the Phrygian shepherd came to SpartaAnd went away with Leda’s daughter, Helen.A solemn pledge—does that amount to nothing?You loved your people once; you were bound to Turnus.Our son must be a stranger; Faunus says so.If Faunus speaks, so be it. I remind youAll lands, not ours, are foreign; and prince Turnus,By the letter of the oracle, an alien.Trace back his ancestry—Acrisius’ daughterFounded his line, and what could be more foreignThan the heart of Greece, Mycenae?”
But she foundHer words were vain: Latinus had decided,She saw she could not move him. And the poisonBy now had taken hold, a wild excitementCoursing the veins; her bones were turned to water;Poor queen, there was no limit to her raging,Streeling, one end of the city to another.You know how schoolboys, when a top is spinning,Snap at it with a whiplash, in a circleAround an empty court, and keep it going,Wondering at the way it keeps on whirling,Driven by blows in this or that direction,So, through the midst of cities and proud people,Amata drives, is driven. Madness and guilt upon her,She flies to the mountains, tries to hide her daughterDeep in the woods, acts like a drunken woman,Cries, over and over, “This girl is meant for Bacchus,And not for any Trojans, only BacchusIs worthy of her; she honors him in dancing,Carries his wand, and keeps for him the sacredLock of her hair!” And Rumor, flying over,Excites the other wives to leave their houses.They come with maddened hearts, with their hair flying,Their necks bare to the winds; they shriek to the skies,Brandish the vine-bound spears, are dressed as tigers,Circle and wheel around their queen, whose frenzyTosses the burning pine-brand high, in gestureTo suit the marriage-hymn: “O Latin mothers,Listen, wherever you are: if any careFor poor Amata moves you, or any senseOf any mother’s rights, come join the revels,Loosen the hair, exult!” Allecto drives herTo the dens of the beasts; her eyes are stained and bloodshot,Rolled upward to the white.
So, thought Allecto,That should suffice: the palace of Latinus,And all the king intended, in confusion.She flew on dusky wings, a gloomy goddess,To the bold Rutulian’s walls, that city, founded,Men say, by Danaë and Acrisian settlers,A place once called Ardea, and it keepsIts ancient name; its glory has departed.And here, in his high palace, Turnus slumbered.In the dead of night, Allecto changed her features,Her limbs, transformed her glowering, her grimness,To an old woman’s wrinkles, bound a ribbonAround gray hair, worked in a wreath of olive,And she was Calybe then, an aged priestessOf Juno’s temple, and so she came to Turnus:—“Turnus! Can this be borne, so many laborsWasted, the kingdom given to the Trojans?The king denies you all, the bride, the dowryBought with your blood; his heir must be a stranger.They mock you; never mind. Go forth, protect them,Save them from dangers, see what thanks they give you,Lay low the Tuscan ranks, hold over the LatinsThe shield of peace. I tell you, Juno told me,And you so calmly slumbering all through it,Rise up, be doing something, and be happyTo see the young men armed, and get them goingOut of the gates! There are ships to burn, and captainsTo set on fire: the mighty gods command it.Let King Latinus know it, let him reckonWith Turnus in arms, unless he keeps his promise.”But Turnus, smiling at her, answered:—“Mother,You tell me nothing new; I know a fleetHas come to Tiber’s waters; do not scare meWith fears imagined; Juno, I am certain,Has not forgotten me. Your age, old woman,Worn-down, truth-weary, harries you with worries,Makes you ridiculous, a busybody,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings.Back to the temple, mind your proper business,Leave war and peace where they belong, with warriors.”Allecto blazed with anger: Turnus, speaking,Was suddenly afraid, so wild her features,So fierce her flaming eyes, the snakes of the FuryHissing disaster. She shoves him back; he falters,Tries to say more; she plies her whip, she doublesThe rising serpents, and her wild mouth cries,“See me for what I am, worn down, truth-weary,Nervous for nothing in the wars of kings!See what I am, see where I come from, bringingWar, war and death, from the Grim Sisters’ home.”She flung the firebrand at him, torch and terrorSmoking with lurid light. The body, sweating,Is torn from sleep; he cries for arms, he seeksArms at his bedside, through the hallways, lustingFor sword and steel, war’s wicked frenzy mountingTo rampant rage. Even so a cauldron bubblesWhen fire burns hot beneath, and water seethes,Stirs, shifts, breaks out in boiling, and the cloudOf steam goes toward the sky. The peace is broken.The call to arms is given; let the captainsMarch on Latinus, drive the foe from Latium,Protect the fatherland. Turnus is coming;No matter who they are, Trojans or Latins,Turnus will take them on. And his example,His frenzied prayer, shook his Rutulian comrades,All eagerness for war. They all admired him,For handsome bearing, youth, or deeds of courage,Or kingly birth: boldness engenders boldness.
Allecto, meanwhile, took a new direction,To the Trojans now; she had found a place for mischiefAlong the shore, she had seen Iulus hunting;His hounds were driven to madness; the scent was rank,Hot in their nostrils; away they went, the packIn full cry after the deer, and that pursuitWas the first cause of trouble; that first kindledThe countryside to violence. That deer,A handsome animal, with mighty antlers,Belonged, a pet, to Tyrrhus and his children,Who had raised him from a fawn. Tyrrhus, the father,Was keeper of the royal herds, and Silvia,The daughter, used to comb the beast, and wash him,Twine garlands in his horns, caress and love him,And he, grown used to her, would wander freelyOver the woods and meadows, and come homeAt nightfall to the friendly door and stable.This was the deer Iulus’ hounds had startedFloating downstream, reclining by the riverFor coolness’ sake, where young Ascanius, burningFor a huntsman’s praise, saw him, and loosed the arrowThat pierced the belly and side, so the poor creatureCame wounded to the house he knew, and moaningCrept into his stall, bleeding, and like a personAsking for help, filled all the house with sorrow.First Silvia came, beating her arms, and others,Summoned for help, equipped themselves for vengeance,With Allecto lurking in the silent forest.A knotted club, a sharpened stake, a firebrand,Whatever comes to hand will serve, when angerIs looking for a weapon. Tyrrhus calls them,They are warriors now, not farmers; they leave the logging,The quartered oak, the wedges; in breathless angerTyrrhus grabs up the axe. A perfect momentFor the goddess on her watch-tower!—she comes flyingTo the stable roof; she sounds the shepherds’ call,Straining her hellish voice on the curved hornTill grove and woodland echo. Diana’s lakeHears, and Velinus’ fountain, and white Nar,The spring of sulphur; and mothers, in their panic,Hold their young children close. But swift to the sound,The dire alarum, came the farmers, running;They call no man their master; they snatch up weapons.And on the other side the youth of the TrojansPour through the open gates to help Iulus.They are drawn up now; no more a rustic quarrelWith stakes and clubs, the double-bladed steelDecides the issue, swords are drawn, the harvestIs black and spiky; bronze defies the sunlight,Tossing its luster cloudward. As waves at seaAt first are little whitecaps under the wind,And slowly turn to billows, and then great combers,So rose the swell of war. Young Almo fell,Eldest of Tyrrhus’ sons; a whirring arrow,Piercing the throat, choked him in his own blood.And many around him fell, among them one,A good old man, Galaesus, who had come forwardTo plead for peace, and died; he was most justOf all Ausonia’s men, and wealthy, countingFive flocks of sheep and cattle; a hundred ploughsFurrowed his acres.
So they fought together,And neither won,—Allecto had kept her promise:She had soaked the war in blood, she had made beginningOf death in battle. She left the western land,She soared to Juno in heaven, proud of her triumph:—“There it is for you, perfect, war createdFrom disagreement! Tell them to join in friendship,Let them make treaties, now my hand has spatteredThe Trojans with Ausonian blood! And stillI can do more, if you desire it: citiesNear-by, I can plague to war with rumors, burn themWith wild desire for battle, bring in alliesFrom everywhere; I will sow the land with armies.”But Juno answered:—“That is plenty, thank you;They can not stop it now; man battles man;Fresh blood is on the arms that chance first gave.Now let them stage that bridal feast, that wedding,Venus’ distinguished son, and king Latinus!Olympus’ ruler would be most unwillingTo let you roam thus freely in the heavens;Be gone from here; whatever more is needed,I will attend to.” So spoke Saturn’s daughter,And the serpents hissed as the Fury raised her wings,Flew up, swooped down, to Hell. Under high hillsIn Italy’s heart, there lies a vale, Ampsanctus,Well known in many lands. Dark forests hide itOn every side, and in its very centreA roaring torrent over the rocks goes brawling,And there is a cavern here, a breathing holeFor terrible Dis, and a gorge, where Acheron riverOpens the deadly jaws; and here AllectoSank out of sight, relieving earth and heaven.
And Juno gave the war the final touches.The shepherds came to the city from the battle,Bearing young Almo, slain, and old Galaesus,His peaceful face defiled; they cry to the gods,They call on King Latinus. Turnus is there,As they cry murder, fuel to their fire,Making their terror double:the kingdom fallsTo the men of Troy, he shouts;our blood is tainted;I am degraded here!And the Latin mothers,Trooping the pathless woods in Bacchic orgies,Amata’s cause being their cause, assembleFrom every side; it is Mars for whom they clamor,Not Bacchus any more. And all the people,Against the omens, against the will of the gods,Cry out for wicked war. They fight each other,Almost, to siege and storm Latinus’ palace.He is a rock in the sea; he stands like a sea-rockWhen a crash of water comes, and it is steadfastAgainst the howl of the waves, and the roar is useless,And the sea-weed, flung at the side, goes dripping back.But even so Latinus could not conquerTheir blind determination. Things were goingAs Juno willed. He invoked the empty air,He invoked the gods, in vain. “Alas, we are broken!We are broken by fate, we are swept away by storm.You will pay for this, you will pay for it with bloodshed,O my poor people! And punishment is waiting,Turnus, for you; you will find it very bitter,And then you will pray, and it will be too late.My rest is won, my voyage almost over;I lose a happy death.” He said no more,Shut himself in his palace, and relinquishedThe reins of power.
There was a Latin custom,Cherished, thereafter, by the Alban cities,As now by Rome, great empress—when they rouseThe god of war to battle, against the Getans,Arabians, Hyrcanians, no matter;Whether they march on India, or striveTo win back captured standards from the Parthians,The custom holds. There are twin gates of Mars,Held in both awe and reverence; they are fastenedBy bolts of bronze, a hundred, by the eternalSolidity of iron, and their guardianIs Janus, always watchful at the threshold.These, when the fathers vote for war, the consul,Girt in the dress of Romulus, and beltedGabinian-wise, with his own hand must open,Must swing the portals wide, with his own voiceCry war, and the others follow, and the trumpetsGive tongue in bronze agreement. So LatinusWas called on, by that custom, for announcementOf war against the Trojans, for the openingOf those grim gates. But he refused to touch them,Fled from the task he loathed, hid in the darkness,And Juno, coming from heaven, shoved them openWith her own hand; the turning hinges grated,The iron was loosed for war. And all Ausonia,Listless till then, unmoved, blazed out in fury:On foot they came, on horseback; through the dustThe cry rang outTo arms!They oil the shields,They make the javelins shine, they hone the axes,They love the sight of banner, the sound of trumpet.In five great cities, Tibur, Crustumerium,Antemnae, and Atina, and Ardea,Strong towns, and proud, and turret-crowned, they forgeNew weapons on their anvils; they carve out helmets,Make wicker covers for the shields; they hammerBreastplates of bronze, or greaves of pliant silver.They beat their ploughshares into swords; the furnaceGives a new temper to the blades of their fathers.Alarum sounds, password is whispered. HelmetsCome down from the wall; the yoke weighs down the horses;A man puts on his armor, picks up his shield,Buckles his sword to his side.
Open the mountain,Muses, release the song!—what kings were hurriedHot-haste to war, who filled their battle-lines,How Italy blossomed with men, and burned with weapons,For you remember, Muses, and you have powerTo make us all remember, deeds that rumor,Far-off and faint, brings to our recollection.
First from the Tuscan shore came fierce Mezentius,Arming his columns, the man who scorned the gods.Beside him, handsomer than any other,Save only Turnus, stood his son, young Lausus,Tamer of horses, huntsman, from Agylla,Leading a thousand warriors, a vain mission;He was worthy, Lausus, of a happier fortuneThan being his father’s subject; he was worthyOf a better father.
Near them, AventinusParaded over the field his horses, victorsIn many a fight, his chariots, crowned with palm-leaves.His shield portrayed a hundred snakes, and the Hydra,Serpent-surrounded, a token of his father,For this was Hercules’ son, whose manly beautyWas like his father’s. His mother was a priestess,Rhea, whom Hercules had known when, victor,He had slain Geryon, reached Laurentian country,And bathed Iberian cattle in the Tiber.His birthplace was the forest on the hillsideThat men call Aventine; his birth was secret.His men go into battle with pikes and javelins,Fight with the tapering sabre, and a curiousSabellan type of dart. And AventinusStrode out on foot, the skin of a lion swingingAcross his shoulders; the bristling mane was shaggy,And the head rose above it like a helmet,With the white teeth bared and snarling. So he enteredThe royal halls, and everything about himGave sign of Hercules.
Next came two brothers,Twins from the town of Tibur, named CatillusAnd Coras; through the throng of spears they enteredAs Centaurs, born from clouds, come down the mountains,Crashing through wood and thicket in their onrush.
There was Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste,A king who, legend says, was born to VulcanIn a country that raised cattle, found, untended,Beside a campfire. His men were country fellowsFrom every here and there, from steep Praeneste,From Juno’s Gabian fields, from the cold river,The Anio, Anagnia, Amasenus,Hernician rocks, and dewy stream and meadow.Some of them had no arms, no shields, no chariots,Their weapons, for the most part, being slingshotsAnd bullets of dull lead, but some of them carriedA couple of darts apiece, and for their headgearWore tawny wolfskins; they kept the left foot bare,They wore a rawhide shinguard on the other.
And there was Messapus, a son of Neptune,A tamer of horses, a man whom none in battleCould hurt with fire or sword; his people cameTo war from years and years of peaceful living,Men from Fescennium, Soracte’s mountains,Flavinian fields, Ciminus’ lake and hillside,Capena’s groves. They sang as they were marching,Hailing their king in measured step and rhythm,Their music like the sound of swans, bound home,White through white cloud, as they return from feeding,And the long throats pour echoing music overMeadow and river. You would not think of warriors,Marshalled in bronze, in that array, but a cloudOf raucous birds, driven from sea to shore.
Clausus, a host in himself, led a great hostOf Sabine blood; the Claudian tribe at RomeOf Sabine origin owes to him its name.His followers came from many cities, Cures,Eretum, Amiternum, and Mutusca,Renowned for olives, Tetrica, Nomentum,Velinus’ countryside and Mount Severus,Casperia and Foruli; many riversHad served their thirst, the Fabaris, the Tiber,Himella’s stream, chill Nursia, and Allia,A name of evil omen: they came like wavesRolling to Africa’s coast when fierce OrionSinks in the wintry ocean, as thick as grainTurned brown in early summer on Hermus’ plainOr Lydia’s yellow acres. The earth tremblesUnder their feet; the shields clang on their shoulders.
And there was Agamemnon’s son, Halaesus,A hater of the Trojan name; for TurnusHe yoked his steeds, he brought a thousand peoples,Men who hoe Massic vineyards, men from hills,Men from the plains; men from Volturnus’ river,Men from the town of Cales; Oscan people,Saticulan hosts. Their weapon is the javelin,Wound with the whiplash; an old-fashioned shieldCovers their left; for work, close-in, they carrySharp-bladed scimitars.
And OebalusWas with him, son of Telon and Sebethis,Born by that nymph when Telon, old, was rulingOver Capri, a realm his son extendedOver Sarrastrian tribes, over the plainland,The Sarnus waters; Batulum, Celemna,Rufrae, were all his towns, and high Abella,Rich in its apple-trees. These warriors carriedSome kind of German dart; they used for headgearBark of the cork-tree: shields and swords were bronze.
From Nersae Ufens came, a man distinguishedIn arms and reputation; his tribe were huntsmen,Farmers, after a fashion; they wore their armorEven when ploughing. Rugged soil they lived on;They loved to raid and live on what they raided.
Archippus, the Marruvians’ king, had sentA warrior-priest, Umbro, renowned in courage.His helmet carried olive leaves; he knewThe arts of charming serpents and of healingTheir venomous wounds; he had no magic, later,Against the Trojan spear-point, and the herbs,Gathered on Marsian hills, availed him littleIn days of war; his native groves and watersMourned his untimely death.
And Virbius came,Aricia’s handsome son, raised in the groves,The marshy shores around Diana’s altar,Most rich, most gracious. Hippolytus, his father,Had once been slain, the story runs, a victimOf Phaedra’s hate and passion, and the vengeanceHis father took; he had been drawn and quarteredBy Theseus’ stallions, but Apollo’s magic,Diana’s love, had given him life againUnder the stars and the fair light of heaven,And Jupiter, angry that any mortalShould rise from shadow to life, struck down his healer,Apollo’s son, with a fearful blast of thunder,Hippolytus being hidden by DianaIn a secret place, where the nymph Egeria tendedHer sacred grove; there he lived out, alone,In the Italian woods, the days of his lifeWith no renown; he took another name,Virbius, meaning,Twice a man; no horsesEver came near that grove, that holy temple,Seeing that horses on an earlier shoreHad overturned his chariot in panicAnd been his death, driven to panic terrorBy monsters from the ocean. But his son,Virbius the younger, had no fear of horses,Driving and riding to war.
Among the foremost,Taller than any, by a head, was Turnus,Gripping the sword; his helmet, triple-crested,Had a Chimaera on it, breathing fireFrom gaping jaws; the bloodier the battle,The hotter the fight, the redder that reflection,And on his shield, in gold, the story of Io,The heifer, once a girl; you could see her guardian,Argus, the hundred-eyed, and her poor father,The river-god with streaming urn, Inachus.And a cloud of warriors on foot behind him,Columns with shields, the Argives and Auruncans,Rutulians, old Sicanians, LabiciansWith colored shields, Sacranians, men from Tiber,Ploughmen of Circe’s ridge, soldiers from Anxur,Sons of Feronia, that land of greennessWhere Satura’s marsh lies dark, and the cold riverRuns seaward through the valley.
And last of allCamilla rode, leading her troops on horseback,Her columns bright with bronze, a soldieress,A woman whose hands were never trained to weaving,To the use of wool, to basketry, a girlAs tough in war as any, in speed afootSwifter than wind. She could go flying overThe tips of the ears of the wheat, and never bruise them,So light her way, she could run on the lift of the wave,Dry-shod; and they came from the houses and fields to wonder,To gaze at her going, young men, and matrons thronging,Wide-eyed and with parted lips, at the glory of royal crimsonOver her shoulders’ smoothness, the clasp of the goldIn her hair, and the way she carried the Lycian quiver,The heft of the pastoral myrtle, the wand with the spearpoint.