The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse

ARGUMENT.

ÆNEAS AND HIS TROJANS BEING DRIVEN TO LIBYA BY A TEMPEST, HAVE GOOD WELCOME OF DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE.

Lo I am he who led the song through slender reed to cry, And then, come forth from out the woods, the fields that are thereby In woven verse I bade obey the hungry tillers' need: Now I, who sang their merry toil, sing Mars and dreadful deed.

I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep By heavenly might for Juno's wrath, that had no mind to sleep: And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame And set his Gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name, And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.

Say, Muse, what wound of godhead was whereby all this must come, How grieving, she, the Queen of Gods, a man so pious drave To win such toil, to welter on through such a troublous wave: 10 --Can anger in immortal minds abide so fierce and fell?

There was a city of old time where Tyrian folk did dwell, Called Carthage, facing far away the shores of Italy And Tiber-mouth; fulfilled of wealth and fierce in arms was she, And men say Juno loved her well o'er every other land, Yea e'en o'er Samos: there were stored the weapons of her hand, And there her chariot: even then she cherished the intent To make her Lady of all Lands, if Fate might so be bent; Yet had she heard how such a stem from Trojan blood should grow, As, blooming fair, the Tyrian towers should one day overthrow, 20 That thence a folk, kings far and wide, most noble lords of fight, Should come for bane of Libyan land: such web the Parcæ dight. The Seed of Saturn, fearing this, and mindful how she erst For her beloved Argive walls by Troy the battle nursed-- --Nay neither had the cause of wrath nor all those hurts of old Failed from her mind: her inmost heart still sorely did enfold That grief of body set at nought in Paris' doomful deed, The hated race, and honour shed on heaven-rapt Ganymede-- So set on fire, that Trojan band o'er all the ocean tossed, Those gleanings from Achilles' rage, those few the Greeks had lost, 30 She drave far off the Latin Land: for many a year they stray Such wise as Fate would drive them on by every watery way. --Lo, what there was to heave aloft in fashioning of Rome!

Now out of sight of Sicily the Trojans scarce were come And merry spread their sails abroad and clave the sea with brass, When Juno's heart, who nursed the wound that never thence would pass, Spake out: "And must I, vanquished, leave the deed I have begun, Nor save the Italian realm a king who comes of Teucer's son? The Fates forbid it me forsooth? And Pallas, might not she Burn up the Argive fleet and sink the Argives in the sea 40 For Oileus' only fault and fury that he wrought? She hurled the eager fire of Jove from cloudy dwelling caught, And rent the ships and with the wind the heaped-up waters drew, And him a-dying, and all his breast by wildfire smitten through, The whirl of waters swept away on spiky crag to bide. While I, who go forth Queen of Gods, the very Highest's bride And sister, must I wage a war for all these many years With one lone race? What! is there left a soul that Juno fears Henceforth? or will one suppliant hand gifts on mine altar lay?"

So brooding in her fiery heart the Goddess went her way 50 Unto the fatherland of storm, full fruitful of the gale, Æolia hight, where Æolus is king of all avail, And far adown a cavern vast the bickering of the winds And roaring tempests of the world with bolt and fetter binds: They set the mountains murmuring much, a-growling angrily About their bars, while Æolus sits in his burg on high, And, sceptre-holding, softeneth them, and strait their wrath doth keep: Yea but for that the earth and sea, and vault of heaven the deep, They eager-swift would roll away and sweep adown of space: For fear whereof the Father high in dark and hollow place 60 Hath hidden them, and high above a world of mountains thrown And given them therewithal a king, who, taught by law well known, Now draweth, and now casteth loose the reins that hold them in: To whom did suppliant Juno now in e'en such words begin:

"The Father of the Gods and men hath given thee might enow, O Æolus, to smooth the sea, and make the storm-wind blow. Hearken! a folk, my very foes, saileth the Tyrrhene main Bearing their Troy to Italy, and Gods that were but vain: Set on thy winds, and overwhelm their sunken ships at sea, Or prithee scattered cast them forth, things drowned diversedly. 70 Twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair: Of whom indeed Deïopea is fairest fashioned there. I give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own To wear away the years with thee, for thy deserving shown To me this day; of offspring fair she too shall make thee sire."

To whom spake Æolus: "O Queen, to search out thy desire Is all thou needest toil herein; from me the deed should wend. Thou mak'st my realm; the sway of all, and Jove thou mak'st my friend, Thou givest me to lie with Gods when heavenly feast is dight, And o'er the tempest and the cloud thou makest me of might." 80

Therewith against the hollow hill he turned him spear in hand And hurled it on the flank thereof, and as an ordered band By whatso door the winds rush out o'er earth in whirling blast, And driving down upon the sea its lowest deeps upcast. The East, the West together there, the Afric, that doth hold A heart fulfilled of stormy rain, huge billows shoreward rolled. Therewith came clamour of the men and whistling through the shrouds And heaven and day all suddenly were swallowed by the clouds Away from eyes of Teucrian men; night on the ocean lies, Pole thunders unto pole, and still with wildfire glare the skies, 90 And all things hold the face of death before the seamen's eyes.

Now therewithal Æneas' limbs grew weak with chilly dread, He groaned, and lifting both his palms aloft to heaven, he said: "O thrice and four times happy ye, that had the fate to fall Before your fathers' faces there by Troy's beloved wall! Tydides, thou of Danaan folk the mightiest under shield, Why might I never lay me down upon the Ilian field, Why was my soul forbid release at thy most mighty hand, Where eager Hector stooped and lay before Achilles' wand, Where huge Sarpedon fell asleep, where Simoïs rolls along 100 The shields of men, and helms of men, and bodies of the strong?"

Thus as he cried the whistling North fell on with sudden gale And drave the seas up toward the stars, and smote aback the sail; Then break the oars, the bows fall off, and beam on in the trough She lieth, and the sea comes on a mountain huge and rough. These hang upon the topmost wave, and those may well discern The sea's ground mid the gaping whirl: with sand the surges churn. Three keels the South wind cast away on hidden reefs that lie Midmost the sea, the Altars called by men of Italy, A huge back thrusting through the tide: three others from the deep 110 The East toward straits, and swallowing sands did miserably sweep, And dashed them on the shoals, and heaped the sand around in ring: And one, a keel the Lycians manned, with him, the trusty King Orontes, in Æneas' sight a toppling wave o'erhung, And smote the poop, and headlong rolled, adown the helmsman flung; Then thrice about the driving flood hath hurled her as she lay, The hurrying eddy swept above and swallowed her from day: And lo! things swimming here and there, scant in the unmeasured seas, The arms of men, and painted boards, and Trojan treasuries. And now Ilioneus' stout ship, her that Achates leal 120 And Abas ferried o'er the main, and old Aletes' keel The storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream Through opening leaky sides of them that gape at every seam.

But meanwhile Neptune, sorely moved, hath felt the storm let go, And all the turmoil of the main with murmur great enow; The deep upheaved from all abodes the lowest that there be: So forth he put his placid face o'er topmost of the sea, And there he saw Æneas' ships o'er all the main besprent, The Trojans beaten by the flood and ruin from heaven sent. But Juno's guile and wrathful heart her brother knew full well: 130 So East and West he called to him, and spake such words to tell:

"What mighty pride of race of yours hath hold upon your minds, That earth and sea ye turmoil so without my will, O winds; That such upheaval and so great ye dare without my will? Whom I--But first it comes to hand the troubled flood to still: For such-like fault henceforward though with nought so light ye pay. Go get you gone, and look to it this to your king to say: That ocean's realm and three-tined spear of dread are given by Fate Not unto him but unto me? he holds the cliffs o'ergreat, Thine houses, Eurus; in that hall I bid him then be bold, 140 Thine Æolus, and lord it o'er his winds in barred hold."

So saying and swifter than his word he layed the troubled main, And put to flight the gathered clouds, and brought the sun again; And with him Triton fell to work, and fair Cymothoë, And thrust the ships from spiky rocks; with triple spear wrought he To lift, and opened swallowing sands, and laid the waves alow. Then on light wheels o'er ocean's face soft gliding did he go. And, like as mid a people great full often will arise Huge riot, and all the low-born herd to utter anger flies, And sticks and stones are in the air, and fury arms doth find: 150 Then, setting eyes perchance on one of weight for noble mind, And noble deeds, they hush them then and stand with pricked-up ears, And he with words becomes their lord, and smooth their anger wears; --In such wise fell all clash of sea when that sea-father rose, And looked abroad: who turned his steeds, and giving rein to those, Flew forth in happy-gliding car through heaven's all-open way.

Æneas' sore forewearied host the shores that nearest lay Stretch out for o'er the sea, and turn to Libyan land this while. There goes a long firth of the sea, made haven by an isle, 159 Against whose sides thrust out abroad each wave the main doth send Is broken, and must cleave itself through hollow bights to wend: Huge rocks on this hand and on that, twin horns of cliff, cast dread On very heaven; and far and wide beneath each mighty head Hushed are the harmless waters; lo, the flickering wood above And wavering shadow cast adown by darksome hanging grove: In face hereof a cave there is of rocks o'erhung, made meet With benches of the living stone and springs of water sweet, The house of Nymphs: a-riding there may way-worn ships be bold To lie without the hawser's strain or anchor's hookèd hold.

That bight with seven of all his tale of ships Æneas gained, 170 And there, by mighty love of land the Trojans sore constrained, Leap off-board straight, and gain the gift of that so longed-for sand, And lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand: And first Achates smote alive the spark from out the flint, And caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint Of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke; Then Ceres' body spoilt with sea, and Ceres' arms they took, And sped the matter spent with toil, and fruit of furrows found They set about to parch with fire and 'twixt of stones to pound.