Aeneid (Conington 1866)/Book 5
BOOK V.
Meantime Æneas in his bark
Sails on, his purpose firm and fast,
And cuts the billows, glooming dark
Beneath the wintry northern blast:
Oft to the town he turns his eyes,
Whence Dido's fires already rise.
What cause has lit so fierce a flame
They know not: but the pangs of shame
From great love wronged, and what despair
Can make a baffled woman dare—
All this they know, and knowing tread
The paths of presage, vague and dread.
The ships had passed into the main,
And land no longer met the eye;
On every side the watery plain,
On every side the expanse of sky,
When o'er his head a cloud there stood,
With night and tempest in its womb,
And all the surface of the flood
Was ruffled by the incumbent gloom.
E'en Palinure his fear confessed,
As from the stern he cries,
'Ah! why do clouds so dark invest
The compass of the skies,
Or what has Neptune sire in store?'
This said, he bids them ply the oar,
And brace each rope: himself the sail
Turns edgewise to the driving gale,
Then thus resumes: 'My gallant lord,
Though Jove himself should pledge his word,
I could not look to stem the seas
To Italy 'neath skies like these.
The winds are changed, and cross our path:
The West is darkening into wrath;
The dull air lowers in thickest mist:
Nor can we struggle or resist;
Come, let us bow to Fortune's sway,
And, as she beckons, shape our way.
Not distant far, I judge, there lies
Your brother Eryx' friendly shore,
Sicania's port, if right my eyes
Retrace the stars they watched before.'
Æneas spoke: 'Long since 'tis plain
The wind gives law, your toil is vain:
Let go the sheet and turn.
What country can I hold so sweet,
So welcome to my weary fleet,
As where Acestes lives and reigns,
True Trojan, and my sire's remains
Are resting in their urn?'
This said, they haste them to the bay:
The favouring Zephyrs speed their way:
Swift rides the navy o'er the main,
And soon the well-known strand they gain.
From mountain-top Acestes marks
The coming of the friendly barks,
And hies him down, in woodland trim
Of hunting-spear and bearskin grim,
Born of a dame of Trojan blood
From union with Crimisus' flood.
His fathers quicken in his veins:
He hails his kinsmen, come once more,
With rustic splendour entertains,
And cheers them from his friendly store.
Soon as the morrow's dawning light
Had put the vanquished stars to flight,
Æneas thus from grassy mound
Bespeaks his comrades gathering round:
'Brave Dardans, born of heavenly line,
A year its round of months has made
Since in the sepulchre we laid
The relics of my sire divine,
And mourning altars reared.
And now that day has come, to me
For ever more, by heaven's decree,
Embittered and endeared.
That day, though in Gætulian wild
It found me outcast and exiled,
Though tossing o'er the Ægæan foam
Or lurking in an Argive home,
That sacred day I still would keep
And high with gifts the altars heap.
And now, as time and place conspire,
E'en at the ashes of my sire,
Not unconducted by the hand
Of favouring gods, to-day we stand.
Then join we gladly in the rite:
Invoke the winds to speed our flight,
And pray that he we hold so dear
]May take our offerings year by year,
Soon as our promised town we raise,
In temples sacred to his praise.
Acestes, Troy's descendant true,
Bestows to-day on every crew
Two fair and stately steers:
Invite we then, the feast to grace,
The home-gods of our own proud race,
And those our host reveres.
Moreover, if the dawn dispense
Her light to earth nine morrows hence,
First for the Teucrians be decreed
A rivalry of naval speed:
Whose feet are swift to run the course,
Whose arm is nerved with manly force
To aim the dart and shaft aright
Or raw-hide gauntlets wield in fight,
Come all, bold hearts and eager eyes,
And he that earns, expect the prize.
Now hush your tongues from idle speech,
And take you garlands, all and each.'
Thus having said, he wreathes his brow
With his maternal myrtle-bough:
So too does Helymus, and so
Acestes with his locks of snow,
And young Ascanius: and the rest
Obey the example and behest.
Then to the tomb he moves along,
The centre of a circling throng:
There, mindful of the rite divine,
Two cups he pours of purest wine,
Two of new milk, and two of gore
From victims, on the grassy floor,
And scatters flowers of dazzling red,
And thus salutes the mighty dead:
'Hail, sacred father! hail again,
Blest shade, blest ashes, snatched in vain
From foe, and fire, and sea!
Not mine with you the Italian shore
And Latian Tiber to explore,
Whoe'er that Tiber be!'
He ceased, when from the tomb below
A serpent, clad in glittering scales,
Seven coils, seven giant volumes trails,
Winds smoothly round the mound of green,
And glides the altar-fires between,
His long back dappled with a glow
Half green, half golden, like the bow
That flashes 'gainst the sunlit skies
A thousand variegated dyes.
Then, as amazed Æneas stood,
'Twixt bowl and cup the reptile wound,
Took tithing of the sacred food,
And harmless vanished 'neath the mound.
With zeal renewed the duteous son
Applies him to the rite begun,
Unknowing in his wondering awe
How best to name the beast he saw,
The genius of the spot they tread,
Or menial follower of the dead:
At once he slays two fatted swine,
Two youngling sheep, two sable kine,
Pours out the sacrificial wine,
And on his mighty father calls,
The shade whom Pluto disenthralls.
Each from his store, the Trojans gay
Present their gifts, their victims slay,
Set on and heat the brimming brass,
Then stretch them careless on the grass:
Strow 'neath the spits a fiery bed,
And roast the flesh on embers red.
And now the expected day is here:
The ninth fair morn in lustre clear
Is driving o'er the sky:
Acestes' name and rumour wide
Have summoned all the country-side:
They crowd the coast through breadth and length,
To see the feats of Trojan strength,
And some their own to try.
There in the midst the gifts are seen,
Rich tripods, meet for sacrifice,
And garlands of luxuriant green,
And sprays of palm, the conqueror's prize,
With arms, and purple robes of state,
And gold and silver, talent-weight:
And from a mound the trump proclaims
The festal onset of the games.
First for the naval prize compete
Four ships, the flower of all the fleet:
With stroke of oarsmen swift and strong
Brave Mnestheus speeds his Shark along,
Mnestheus, one day Ausonia's grace,
The founder of the Memmian race.
Chimæra moves in Gyas' charge,
Huge bulk, a city scarce so large,
With Dardan rowers in triple bank,
The tiers ascending rank o'er rank:
Sergestus, whence the Sergian name,
Commands the Centaur's mighty frame:
While Scylla is Cloanthus' care:
Cluentius his Italian heir.
Far in the sea a rock there lies,
And fronts the spray-beat coast:
High o'er its top the billows rise
And whelm it deep, what time the skies
In wintry storms are lost:
When wind and wave are laid to sleep,
It stands above the moveless deep,
A level, on whose ample breast
The basking sea-birds love to rest.
Thereon an oak with leafy bole
Æneas plants, to form a goal,
That helmsman's eye the spot may mark
And prompt his hand to turn the bark.
Each takes the place his lot assigns:
Proud on the stern each captain shines
With gold and purple dye:
The crews are wreathed with poplar green:
Their naked shoulders oil makes sheen:
And now on rowing-bench they sit,
Bend to the oar their arms close knit,
And straining watch the sign to start;
While generous trembling thrills each heart
And thirst for victory.
Then, at the trumpet's piercing sound,
All from their barriers onward bound:
Upsoars to heaven the oarsman's shout:
The upturned billows froth and spout.
In level lines they plough the deep:
All ocean yawns, as on they sweep,
And three-toothed beak and plashing oar
Tear from its base the marble floor.
Less swift in heady two-horse race
The chariots scour the field apace,
When from their base they dash:
Less eager o'er the tossing manes
The charioteer flings out the reins,
And bends him o'er the lash.
With plaudits loud and clamorous zeal
Echoes the woodland round:
The pent shores roll the thunder-peal,
The stricken hills rebound.
'Mid hurry and tumultuous shout
First Gyas issues from the rout,
And holds the foremost place:
Cloanthus next: his oarsmen row
More featly: but his bark is slow,
And checks him in the race.
Behind, at equal distance, strain
Centaur and Shark the lead to gain:
And now the Shark darts forth, and now
The Centaur has advanced her bow:
And now the twain move side by side,
Their long keels trailing through the tide.
At length the rock before them lay:
The goal was in their reach:
When Gyas, conqueror of the way,
His helmsman thus, Menœtes gray,
Plies with upbraiding speech:
'Why to the right so blindly push?
Here, take a narrower sweep:
Hug close the shore, nor fear its crush:
The cliff's left hand our oars should brush:
Let others hold the deep.'
So Gyas: but Menœtes fears
The hidden rocks, and seaward steers.
'What? swerving still?' he shouts once more:
'The shore, Menœtes! seek the shore!'
And backward as he turns his eyes,
O death!—Cloanthus he descries
Close following, nearer and more near,
And all but springing on his rear.
'Twixt Gyas and the rocky shoal
The rival deftly glides,
Shoots to the forefront, turns the goal,
And gains the safer tides.
Grief flashed to flame in Gyas' soul:
Tears from his eyes were seen to roll:
All reckless of his own true pride
And his imperilled crew
He seized the dilatory guide
And from the vessel threw:
Himself assumes the helm, and cheers
His merry men, and shoreward steers.
But old Menœtes, when the main
Gave him at length to light again,
Landward with feeble motion swims,
His wet clothes clinging to his limbs,
Ascends the rock, and sits on high
There on the summit, safe and dry.
To see him fall the Trojans laughed:
They laughed to see him float,
And laugh, as now the briny draught
He sputters from his throat.
Now Mnestheus and Sergestus feel
A dawning hope, a new-born zeal,
Chimæra to outstrip:
The choice of way Sergestus gets,
And toward the rock his helm he sets:
Not first by all his length of bark,
First but by part; a part the Shark
Just covers with her tip.
But Mnestheus, pacing through and through
His vessel, cheers the eager crew:
'Now, now, my men, now ply your oar,
Who fought at Hector's side of yore,
Whom in the day of Troy's despair
I chose my destiny to share:
Call up the valour in your souls
That made you thread Gætulian shoals,
Defy the Ionian main, and scape
The waves that buffet Malea's cape.
'Tis not the palm that Mnestheus seeks:
No hope of victory fires his cheeks:
Yet O that thought!—but conquer they
To whom great Neptune wills the day:
Not to be last—make that your aim,
And triumph by averting shame.'
Onward with vehement zeal they bound:
Beneath them vanishes the ground:
The mailed ship labours with their blows:
Thick pantings all their members shake,
And parching heats their dry lips bake,
While sweat in torrents flows.
Thus as they struggle, fortune's freak
Accords them the success they seek:
For while Sergestus, blindly rash,
Drives to the rock his vessel's head
And strives the perilous pass to thread,
On jutting crags behold him dash!
Loud crash the oars with shivering shock:
The wedged prow hangs upon the rock.
With shout and scream upstart the crew,
Condemned to halt where late they flew:
Ply steel-tipped poles and pointed staves,
And pick the crushed oars from the waves.
But joyous Mnestheus, made more keen
By vantage offering unforeseen,
With all his oars in rapid play
And winds to waft him on his way,
Darts forth into the shelving tides,
And o'er the sea's broad bosom glides.
So all at once a startled dove,
Who builds her nest in rocky cove,
Bursts forth, and in her wild affright
Loud flaps her fluttering wings for flight:
Then launched in air, the smooth deep skims,
Nor stirs a pinion as she swims:
So Mnestheus: so his vessel flees
Along the residue of seas:
The very impulse of its flight
Conveys it on, how swift, how light!
And first Sergestus in the rear
He leaves, still struggling to get clear,
While vainly succour he implores,
And tries to row with shattered oars.
Chimæra next he puts in chase:
Her helmsman lost, she yields the race.
Cloanthus now alone remains
Just finishing the course;
Whom to o'ertake he toils and strains
With all ambition's force.
The cheers redouble from the shore;
Heaven echoes with the wild uproar:
Those blush to lose a conquering game,
And fain would peril life for fame:
These bring success their zeal to fan;
They can because they think they can.
And now perchance with vessels paired
The rivals twain the prize had shared,
When with his palms to ocean spread
Cloanthus breathed a prayer, and said:
'Ye gods who o'er the deep have sway,
Whose watery realm I plough,
Before your altar in the bay
A milk-white bull I stand to slay,
Amerced in this my vow,
Cast forth the entrails o'er the brine,
And pour a sacred stream of wine.'
He said: there heard him 'neath the sea
The Nereid train and Panope,
And with his hand divinely strong
Portunus pushed the bark along:
Swifter than wind or shaft it flies
To land, and in the haven lies.
Æneas then, assembling all,
Proclaims aloud by herald's call
Cloanthus victor of the day,
And wreaths his conquering brows with bay:
Three goodly bulls he bids him choose
(Such boon is given to all the crews)
With wine, and to his vessel bear
A silver talent, for its share.[errata 1]
The chiefs themselves receive beside
Rich gifts of more conspicuous pride:
A gold-wrought scarf of rare device
Upon the conqueror he bestows,
Around whose field meandering twice
A stream of Grecian purple flows:
Inwoven there the princely boy
Along the wooded hills of Troy
Is following on the flying deer
With eager foot and lifted spear,
So keen, his pants are all but heard:—
Down swoops the thunder-bearing bird,
And from the mountain bears away
In taloned claws the beauteous prey.
His aged guardians raise on high
Their hands: the fierce hounds bay the sky.
But he whose prowess in the race
Won for his bark the second place,
To hi m he gives a shirt of mail,
A three-piled work of golden scale,
Which from Demoleos' breast he tore
Victorious once on Simois' shore—
A garniture of glorious show,
Nor fitted less to ward a blow.
Beneath, that burden staggering strain
Two stalwart squires of Mnestheus' train,
Wherewith Demoleos erst endued
Troy's scattered sons on foot pursued.
With caldrons twain the third is graced,
And silver-bowls with figures chased.
The meeds were given; the rivals proud
Were moving stately through the crowd,
Each glorying in his several boon,
And wreathed with purple-bright festoon,
When lo! unhonoured and forlorn,
Scarce from the rock with effort torn,
One tier destroyed, 'mid gibes and jeers
His wavering bark Sergestus steers.
E'en as a snake that on the way
Some wheel has mangled as it lay,
Or passer-by with stone well-aimed
Has left half-dying, crushed and maimed:
In slow retreat without avail
It strives its lengthening coils to trail:
One half erect the foe defies
With hissing throat and fiery eyes;
One, lame and wounded, backward holds
The surging spires and gathering folds:
So rows the bark on her slow way,
Yet sets her sail, and gains the bay.
Not less her chief receives his due
For ship brought back and rescued crew,
A Cretan slave, expert to spin,
And at her bosom children twin.
When ended now the naval race,
Æneas seeks a grassy space,
Which winding hills encompass round,
Their shaggy tops with forests crowned;
There, as the deepening vale descends,
A rustic theatre extends,
Where, ringed with thousands round, he sate
On high-heaped throne in rural state.
Whoe'er in speed of foot would vie
He here invites, their chance to try
And earn reward: from diverse parts
They come, swift limbs and generous hearts,
Trojan and Sicel interspersed:
Euryalus and Nisus first:
That for his beauty and his youth
Conspicuous 'mid the sons of Troy,
This for his pure affection's truth
Concentred on the lovely boy.
Diores next them takes his place,
A princely branch of Priam's race:
Salius and Patron too succeed,
The one of Acarnanian breed,
While Tegea gave the other birth,
And Arcady his parent earth:
Then Helymus and Panopes,
Trinacria's youthful offspring these,
Trained in the woods to chase the boar
And comrades of Acestes hoar:
With many a candidate besides
Whom dim-eyed fame in darkness hides.
Whom, as around his seat they pressed,
Æneas thus in brief addressed:
'Vouchsafe your audience, and receive
My words with glad regard.
None of this train the field shall leave
Unguerdoned by reward:
Two polished darts of Gnossian craft,
An axe with silver-studded haft,
Such boon be each one's share:
The three who prove them first in speed
Shall boast a more conspicuous meed,
And olive chaplets wear:
First to the victor of the day
A horse be given with trappings gay:
A quiver shall the second grace,
True Amazon, with shafts from Thrace,
A belt withal of broad bright gold
With jewelled clasp to clench its hold:
These for the second: on the third
This Argive helmet be conferred.'
He said: at once they take their place,
And at the sign begin the race,
Pour from their base like rain-cloud dark,
And strain their eyes the goal to mark.
First, far before each flying form,
Comes Nisus rushing like the storm;
Then, nearest him where none are near,
Young Salius strains in full career;
Then with brief interval of space
Euryalus, the third in place;
Then Helymus: behind him, lo!
Diores, touching heel with toe,
Close hangs upon his rear,
And, had they run but few roods more,
Had passed him, shooting on before,
And made the vantage clear.
And now the race was all but o'er,
And panting to the goal they drew,
When Nisus trips in slippery gore
Chance-sprinkled on the grassy floor
From beasts the sacrificers slew:
So late the conqueror, blithe and bold,
He fails to keep his foot's sure hold,
And falls in prone confusion flung
'Mid victim blood and loathly dung.
E'en then affection claims its part:
Euryalus is in his heart:
Uprising from the sodden clay,
He casts himself in Salius' way,
And Salius tripped and sprawling lay.
Euryalus like lightning flies
'Mid plaudits and assenting cries,
And through his friend attains the prize:
Next Helymus, and next conies in
Diores, thus the third to win.
Salius aloud his wrong proclaims
To all who sit to view the games:
Fills with his shouts the foremost seat,
Claims back the prize, and brands the cheat.
But more Euryalus finds grace:
So well the tears beseem his face,
And worth appears with brighter shine
When lodged within a lovely shrine.
Diores swells the general strain,
Just ranged within the conquering list—
An empty preference, all in vain,
Should Salius have the prize he missed.
Æneas thus: 'Your rights are yours:
None stirs the palm my word assures:
Let me be suffered to extend
Compassion to a hapless friend.'
So speaking, Salius he consoled
With lion's hide, its claws of gold.
Outspoke bold Nisus: 'If defeat
Such vast requital needs must meet,
And falls win friends, what boon of grace
Were large enough for Nisus' case
Whose merit made him first in place?
But fortune, with malicious glee,
That baffled Salius, baffled me.'
And saying thus, his face he reared,
And showed his limbs with ordure smeared.
The good sire smiled, and bade be brought
A shield by Didymaon wrought,
A Danaan spoil, which erst he tore
From Grecian Neptune's temple door:
Then to the gallant youth presents
The guerdon, and his heart contents.
The foot-race done, the meeds assigned,
'Now for the prompt collected mind,
Stout heart, and watchful eye:
Stand forth, your wrists with gauntlets bind,
And lift your arms on high.'
He said, and for the boxing-fray
Two prizes he proposed:
A bull for him that wins the day,
Its horns with gold enclosed:
A shining helmet and a glaive
To reassure the beaten brave.
At once, gigantic, broad, and strong,
Amid the plaudits of the throng
Uprises Dares, who alone
With Paris' skill dared match his own:
Nay, at the tomb where Hector lies,
The champion Butes, vast of size,
Who plumed him on an athlete's breed
From Amycus' Bebrycian seed,
Fell, stricken by his conquering hand,
And gasped expiring on the sand.
Such Dares in the lists appears,
His lofty head defiant rears,
The compass of his shoulders shows,
His arms by turns before him throws,
And on the air expends his blows.
His match is sought, but sought in vain:
Not one of all that mighty train
Has nerve the champion to defy
And round his hands the gauntlets tie.
So, filled with overweening might,
And thinking all declined the fight,
Before the chief he takes his stand,
Lays on the bullock's horn his hand,
And thus in triumph cries:
'Why, goddess-born, this vain delay?
If none dare venture on the fray,
How long shall justice be deferred?
'T were decent now to give the word
And bid me take the prize.'
With shouts the Trojan host agreed
And claimed their champion's promised meed.
Now with rebuke Acestes plies
Entellus, who beside him lies
Upon the grassy sward:
'Entellus, whom erewhile we thought
Our bravest hero, all for nought,
And will you then the strife forego,
And see borne off without a blow
The champion's proud reward?
Where now the pupil's loyal pride
In mighty Eryx deified,
The fame that spread Trinacria o'er,
The trophies hanging from your door?'
'Nay,' cries the chief, 'no coward dread
Has made ambition hide her head:
But strength is slack in limbs grown old,
And aged blood runs dull and cold.
Had I the thing I once possessed,
Which makes yon braggart rear his crest,
Had I but youth, no need had been
Of gifts to lure me to the green:
No, though the bull were twice as fair,
'Tis not the prize should make me dare.'
Then on the ground in open view
Two gloves of giant weight he threw
Which Eryx once in combat plied
And braced him with the tough bull-hide.
In speechless wonder all behold:
Seven mighty hides with fold on fold
Enwrap the fist: and iron sewed
And knobs of lead augment the load.
E'en Dares starts in sheer dismay,
And shuns the desperate essay;
The gauntlets' weight Æneas tries,
And handles their enormous size.
Then fetching speech from out his breast
The veteran thus the train addressed:
'What if the gauntlets you had seen
Alcides wore that day,
Had stood on this ensanguined green
And watched the fatal fray?
These gloves your brother Eryx wore,
Still stained, you see, with brains and gore.
With those 'gainst Hercules he stood:
With these I fought, while youthful blood
Supplied me strength, nor age had shed
Its envious winter on my head.
But if the arms Sicilians wield
Deter the Trojan from the field,
If so Æneas' thoughts incline,
And so my chief approves,
Let both be equal, side and side:
I spare you Eryx' grim bull-hide:
Dismiss that terror, and resign
In turn your Trojan gloves.'
He said, and from his shoulders throws
The robe he wont to use,
His mighty frame's contexture shows,
His mighty arms and thews,
And in the middle of the sand
In giant greatness takes his stand.
Then good Anchises' son supplies
Two pairs of gauntlets matched in size,
Equips the combatants alike,
And sets them front to front to strike.
Raised on his toes each champion stands,
And fearless lifts in air his hands.
Their heads, thrown back, avoid the stroke;
Their mighty arms the fight provoke.
That on elastic youth relies,
This on vast limbs and giant size;
But the huge knees with age are slack,
And fitful gasps the deep chest rack.
Full many a wound the heroes rain
Each on the other, still in vain:
Their hollow sides return the sound,
Their battered chests the shock rebound:
'Mid ears and temples come and go
The wandering gauntlets to and fro:
The jarred teeth chatter 'neath the blow.
Firm stands Entellus in his place,
A column rooted on its base;
His watchful eye and shrinking frame
Alone avoid the gauntlet's aim.
Like leaguer who invests a town
Or sits before a hill-fort down,
The younger champion tasks his art
To find the bulwark's weakest part,
This way and that unwearied scans,
And vainly tries a thousand plans.
Entellus, rising to the blow,
Puts forth his hand: the wary foe
Midway in air the mischief spied,
And, deftly shifting, slipped aside.
Entellus' force on air is spent:
Heavily down with prone descent
He falls, as from its roots uprent
A pine falls hollow, on the side
Of Erymanth or lofty Ide.
Loud clamouring from their seats arise
Troy's and Trinacria's sons:
The shouts mount upward to the skies:
And first Acestes runs,
And tenderly from earth[errata 2] uprears
His ancient friend of equal years.
But not disheartened by his foil
The champion rises from the soil:
With wrath he goads his sluggard might,
And turns him fiercer to the fight:
The smouldering mass is stirred to flame
By conscious worth and glowing shame:
Ablaze with fury he pursues
The Trojan o'er the green,
And now his right hand deals the bruise,
And now his left as keen.
No pause, no respite: fierce and fast
As hailstones rattle down the blast
On sloping roofs, with blow on blow
He buffets Dares to and fro.
But good Æneas suffered not
The strife to rage too far:
Or ere Entellus waxed more hot,
He bade him cease the war,
Delivered Dares, sore distressed,
And thus with soothing words addressed:
'Alas! what frenzy of the mind
Has made you, hapless friend, so blind?
Perceive you not the powers have changed,
And left the side where once they ranged?
Give way to Heaven.' Such speech he made,
And as he spoke, the combat stayed.
But Dares by a friendly throng
All helplessly is dragged along;
Trailing his knees his weight beneath,
Swaying his head from side to side,
While clotted gore and loosened teeth
Pour from his mouth in mingled tide.
They bear him to the ships away:
Then at a call receive
The helm and sword: the bull and bay
They with Entellus leave.
With triumph kindling in his eyes
And glorying in the bull, his prize,
The victor to the concourse cries:
'Learn, goddess-born, and Ilium's host,
What strength my youthful arm could boast,
And what the death, from whose dark door
Your rescued Dares you restore.'
He spoke, and stood before the bull,
Swung back his arm, and planted full
Between its horns the gauntlet's blow.
The brain came through the shattered skull:
Prone, quivering, dead, the beast lies low
While words like these the veteran said
In consecration of the dead:
'This better substitute I pay,
Eryx, to thee, for Dares' life,
And here renounce, as conqueror may,
The gauntlets and the strife.'
The champions next, who would compete
In archer skill with arrow fleet,
Æneas summons, and ordains
The gifts that shall reward their pains.
His mighty hand erects a mast
Plucked from Serestus' bark,
And to its top a dove makes fast
To be the bowman's mark.
The rivals gather to the spot:
A brazen helm receives each lot:
And first amid applauding cries
Hippocoon's name to daylight flies:
Next Mnestheus, wreathed with olive crown,
Mnestheus, whose vessel earned renown.
Third in the list Eurytion came,
Thy brother, Pandarus, mighty name,
Whose arrow, charged to break the peace,
First fluttered through the ranks of Greece.
Last at the bottom of the casque
Acestes' lot appears,
He too adventuring to the task
That matches younger years.
They bend their bows like men of worth,
And from the case their shafts draw forth:
And first from off the twanging string
Hippocoon's feathered dart takes wing,
Achieves the passage, and sticks fast
Full in the centre of the mast.
The stout tree quivers: the scared bird
Flaps, and applauding peals are heard.
Then Mnestheus raises toward the sky
His bow, and levels shaft and eye—
But ah! the dove he might not wound:
His arrow cuts the flaxen ties
Which to the mast had held her bound;
And forth into the clouds she flies.
With shaft already aimed for flight,
Eurytion to his brother vowed:
Triumphant as she wings the height,
He strikes the dove beneath a cloud.
Pierced to the heart, she leaves behind
Her life to mingle with the wind,
And as she tumbles to the ground,
The weapon in her side is found.
And now, of victory bereft,
Acestes at the end is left:
Yet still he shoots in air, to show
His veteran skill and sounding bow:
When sudden lo! the gazers see
A sign of mightiest augury:
The dire event the truth revealed,
And seers too late their warnings pealed.
E'en in the mid expanse of skies
The arrow kindles as it flies,
Behind it draws a fiery glare,
Then wasting, vanishes in air:
So stars, dislodged, athwart the night
Career, and trail a length of light.
In wonder either nation gazed,
Their souls to Heaven in prayer upraised:
Nor great Æneas dared disown
The omen by the gods foreshown;
Acestes to his heart he pressed,
With presents heaped, and thus addressed:
'Take this, my father! 'tis decreed
That yours should be a special meed:
So speak these signs above.
This bowl, enchased with figures, take,
And keep it for Anchises' sake:
A gift which Cisseus, lord of Thrace,
Once gave my sire of his dear grace,
In token of their love.'
Then round Acestes' temples hoar
He bound the wreath of bay,
And hailed him all his peers before
The conqueror of the day:
Nor good Eurytion grudged to see
The veteran's claim preferred,
Albeit that he, and none but he,
Struck down the soaring bird.
Next his who cut the cord, and last
The champion's turn who struck the mast.
But good Æneas, e'en before
The archers' rivalry was o'er,
In private summoned to his side
The young Iulus' trusted guide,
Old Periphas Epytides,
And gently whispered words like these:
'Go now, and if Ascanius' band
Of boyish knights is here at hand,
Bid him on this his grandsire's day
Himself and them in arms display.'
This said, he bids the company
Retire, and leave the circus free.
They enter, glittering side by side,
And rein their steeds with youthful pride,
As 'neath their fathers' eyes they ride,
While all Trinacria's host and Troy's
With plaudits greet the princely boys.
Each has his hair by rule confined
With stripped-off leaves in garland twined:
Some ride with shapely bows equipped:
Two cornel spears they bear, steel-tipped:
And wreaths of twisted gold invest
The neck, and sparkle on the breast.
Three are the companies of horse,
And three the chiefs that scour the course:
Twelve gallant boys each chief obey,
And shine in tripartite array.
Young Priam first, Polites' heir,
Well-pleased his grandsire's name to bear,
Leads his gay troop, himself decreed
To raise up an Italian seed:
He prances forth, all dazzling bright,
On Thracian steed with spots of white:
White on its fetlock's front is seen,
And white the space its brows between.
Then Atys, next in place, from whom
The Atian family descend:
Young Atys, fresh with life's first bloom,
The boy Iulus' sweet boy-friend:
Iulus last, in form and face
Preeminent his peers above,
A courser rides of Tyrian race,
Memorial gift of Dido's love.
Sicilian steeds the rest bestride
From old Acestes' stalls supplied.
The Dardanids with mingling cheers
Relieve the young aspirants' fears,
And gaze delighted, as they trace
A parent's mien in each fair face.
And now when all from first to last
Beneath their kinsfolk's eyes had past,
Before the assembled crowd,
Epytides shrills forth from far
His signal-shout, as if for war,
And cracks his whip aloud.
In equal parts the bands divide,
And gallop off on either side:
Then wheeling round in full career
Charge at a call with levelled spear.
Again, again, they come and go
Through adverse spaces to and fro;
Circles in circles interlock.
And, sheathed in arms, the gazers mock
With mimicry of battle-shock.
And now they turn their backs in flight,
Now put their spears in rest,
And now in amity unite,
And ride the field abreast.
E'en as of old the Cretan maze
With blind blank walls its secret hid,
A tangle of a thousand ways,
Which whoso sought by signs to thrid
Went wandering, baffled and involved,
Through paths returnless and unsolved:
Such tangle make the youths of Troy
As o'er the champaign they deploy,
And deftly weave in sportive play
A mingled web of fight and fray,
As dolphins at their sport with ease
The expanse of ocean sweep
'Twixt Libyan and Carpathian seas
And gambol o'er the deep.
This pageantry of mimic strife
Ascanius called again to life,
What time with wall and rampart strong
He girdled Alba, named the Long,
And to the elder Latins showed
The celebration and the mode
Which erst he practised when a boy,
And, 'neath his lead, the youth of Troy.
Young Alba learned the lesson set:
From Alba queenly Rome
Received the lore, and honours yet
The custom of her home,
And Troy's hereditary name
Still marks the players and the game.
Thus far the pageant rites were paid
To blest Anchises' hallowed shade.
Now Fortune first with wayward guile
Changed for a frown her former smile.
Fell Juno, while before the mound
The games perform their festal round,
Despatches Iris from the sky
And gives her wings of wind to fly,
Deep plotting ill, her ancient pride
Yet festering and unpacified.
Adown her bow of myiyad dyes,
Unseen of all, the maiden hies,
The mighty concourse she surveys,
Then turns her to the sea:
A port forsaken meets her gaze,
A fleet from tendance free.
But on a sheltered beach alone
The dames of Troy are making moan
For their lost sire, and as they weep
Look wistful, woful o'er the deep.
O weary, weary length of foam!
O watery waste whereon to roam!
So, one and all, they cry:
A settled city they implore:
'Twere pain and heaviness once more
The ocean's toils to try.
So now, not ignorant of harm,
The goddess veils each heavenly charm,
And sudden stands before their eyes
In Beroe's simulated guise,
Beroe, Doryclus' aged dame,
Who once had children, place and name:
And thus transfigured she proclaims
Her presence to the assembled dames:
'O wretches, whom in Ilium's day
The Argive conqueror spared to slay!
O race long exercised in ill!
For what extreme has Fortune's will
Preserved you living, suffering still?
Now, since our country was no more,
Seven summers nigh have flown,
And we, still tossing ocean o'er,
'Mid reefs of cold bare stone,
O'erarched by alien stars above,
All homeless and unfriended rove,
While through the billows we pursue
Italia, flying from the view,
And down the tides are blown.
Lo, here is Eryx' brother coast,
Acestes too, our kingly host:
Why make not here our home, and bless
With city walls the cityless?
O country! O ye home-god powers
Snatched from the foe in vain!
Shall never town of Troy be ours
In all the world again?
Xanthus and Simois, Hector's streams,
Shall I behold them but in dreams?
Come, share my counsel, and conspire
To wrap these ill-starred ships in fire.
E'en as I slept last night, methought
New-lighted brands Cassandra brought,
And 'Here,' she cried, 'conclude your quest:
Here find your Troy, your home of rest.'
This hour the deed demands.
Shall man's supineness mock the skies?
See, altars four to Neptune rise:
The God, the God himself supplies
The fury and the brands.'
She seized a torch, and o'er her head
Waved it with backdrawn arm, and sped.
With kindling hearts and senses dazed
The mothers of Dardania gazed.
Then one, in reverend years the first,
Pyrgo, who Priam's sons had nurst,
'No Beroe, matrons, have you here:
Not this Doryclus' wife:
See, breathing in her face appear
Signs of celestial life:
Observe her eyes, how bright they shine:
Mien, accent, walk, are all divine.
Beroe herself I left but now
Sick and outworn, with clouded brow,
That she alone should fail to pay
Due reverence to Anchises' day.'
In doubt at first the matrons stand,
And scan the ships with eyes malign,
Divided 'twixt their present land
And that which beckons o'er the brine,
When lo! her wings the goddess spread,
And skyward on her rainbow fled.
Then all as one to madness driven
By portents manifest from heaven,
A shout of loud acclaim they raise,
Live embers snatch from hearths ablaze,
The fuel on the altars seize,
Hurl stocks and brands, and boughs of trees:
The fire-god darts from mast to keel
O'er bench and oar, and figured deal.
Swift breaks Eumelus on the games
With tidings of the fleet in flames,
And, looking back, the gazers spy
The smoke-clouds blackening on the sky.
Ascanius first, as o'er the mead
He leads his young array,
Spurs to the camp his fiery steed,
Nor can his guardians, blown with speed,
His headlong impulse stay:
And 'Wretched countrywomen! whence'
He cries 'this rage that robs your sense?
No Greek encampment you consume:
No—'tis your own dear hopes ye doom.
Look! your Ascanius speaks!' before
His feet upon the sand
He flung the helm he lately wore
While marshalling his band.
Æneas and the Trojan host
Come hurrying, hasting to the coast.
The guilty matrons, winged with dread,
Along the devious shores are fled,
Hide in the tangles of the grove,
Or huddling seek some rocky cove:
Their frenzied enterprise they rue,
And loathe the blessed light of heaven;
With sobering eyes their friends they view,
And Juno from their souls is driven.
Yet still with unabated power
The fire continues to devour:
'Twixt the soaked timbers oozes slow
Thick vapour from the smouldering tow;
The threads of pestilential flame
Steal downward through each vessel's frame;
Nor all the efforts of the brave
Nor streaming floods avail to save.
In desperate grief Æneas rends
His raiment, and his hands extends:
'Dread Sire, if Ilium's lorn estate
Deserve not yet thine utter hate,
If still thine ancient faithfulness
Give heed to mortals in distress,
O let the fleet escape the flame!
O save from death Troy's dying name!
Or, if my deeds the stroke demand,
Then, Father, bare thy red right hand,
Send forth thy lightning, and o'erwhelm
The poor remainder of our realm!'
Scarce had he ended, when from high
Pours down a burst of rain,
And thunder rolling round the sky
Shakes rising ground and plain:
All heaven lets loose its watery store;
The clouds are massed, the south winds roar:
With sluicing rain the ships are drenched,
Till every spark at last is quenched,
And all the barks, save only four,
Escape the fiery conqueror.
But good Æneas, all distraught
By that too cruel blow,
In dire perplexity of thought,
Alternates to and fro,
Still doubting should he take his rest,
Unmindful of the fates' behest,
In Sicily, or make once more
An effort for the Italian shore.
Then Nautes, whose experienced mind
Pallas made sage beyond his kind,
Interpreting what Heaven's dread ire
Might threaten, or the fates require,
Breathes counsel in Æneas' ear,
And strives his anxious soul to cheer:
'My chief, let Fate cry on or back,
'Tis ours to follow, nothing slack:
Whate'er betide, he only cures
The stroke of fortune who endures.
Lo here Acestes the divine,
Himself a prince of Dardan line:
Invite his counsel; bid him share
(He will not grudge) your load of care.
Give to his charge the homeless band
That erst our four lost vessels manned,
Whoe'er from high emprise[errata 3] recoils
And sickens to partake your toils,
Old men and wayworn dames, and all
That faints and shrinks at danger's call;
Here let the weary set them down,
And build them a Sicilian town:
Let courtesy assert her claim,
And give the place Acestes' name.'
With kindling soul he meditates
The counsel of his friend,
And fiercer still the dire debates
His troubled bosom rend.
Now sable night invests the sky,
When lo! descending from on high
The semblance of Anchises[errata 4] seemed
To give him counsel as he dreamed:
'My son, more dear, while life remained,
E'en than that life to me,
My son, long exercised and trained
In Ilium's destiny,
My errand is from Jove the sire,
Who saved your vessels from the fire,
And sent at last from heaven above
The wished-for tokens of his love.
Hear and obey the counsel sage
Bestowed by Nautes' reverend age:
Picked youths, the bravest of the brave,
Be these your comrades o'er the wave,
For haughty are the tribes and rude
That Latium has to be subdued.
But ere you yet confront the foe,
First seek the halls of Dis below,
Pass deep Avernus' vale, and meet
Your father in his own retreat.
Not Tartarus' prison-house of crime
Detains me, nor the mournful shades:
My home is in the Elysian clime,
With righteous souls, 'mid happy glades.
The virgin Sibyl with the gore
Of sable sheep shall ope the door.
Then shall you learn your future line,
And what the walls the fates assign.
And now farewell: dew-sprinkled Night
Has scaled Olympus' topmost height:
I catch their panting breath from far,
The steeds of Morning's cruel star.'
He said, and vanished out of sight,
Like thinnest smoke, and mixed with night;
While 'Whither now?' Æneas cries:
'What makes thee hurry thus apace?
Whom fliest thou? what constraint denies
A father to his son's embrace?'
With that he wakes the slumbering fire,
Adores the home-god of his sire,
And worships Vesta's awful power
With frankincense and wheaten flour.
At once he summons to his side
Acestes and his comrades tried,
Jove's mandate and his sire's unfolds,
And how at length his purpose holds.
No long debates the deed delay,
Nor good Acestes says him nay.
Forthwith the matrons they enrol,
First dwellers in the new-planned town,
And disembark each weary soul
That thirsts no more for high renown.
Themselves the fire-charred planks renew,
The benches and the decks repair,
Equip with oars each vessel's crew,
And rig the masts with studious care,
A gallant band, in number few,
In spirit resolute to dare.
Meantime Æneas draws the lines
Of the new town, its homes assigns:
Each place receives a name to bear,
And here 'tis Troy, and Ilium there.
Acestes, genuine son of Troy,
Assumes the sovereignty with joy,
Holds trial of each doubtful cause,
And gives the infant senate laws.
On Eryx' top a fane they raise
To mate the stars, in Venus' praise,
And with a priest and grove they grace
Anchises' hallowed resting-place.
And now the nine days' feast is o'er,
The sacred rites complete;
The hushed gales smooth the watery floor;
The south-wind, freshening from the shore,
Invites the lingering fleet.
Along the winding coast arise
Loud sounds of grief and tearful cries.
Locked in each other's arms they stay,
And clog the wheels of night and day.
Nay, e'en the matrons, e'en the crew
Who shuddered at the ocean's view
And loathed its name, now fain would flee
And brave the hardships of the sea.
With kindliness of gentle speech
The good Æneas comforts each,
And to their kinsman prince commends
With tears his subjects and his friends.
Three calves to Eryx next he kills;
A lambkin's blood to Tempest spills,
And bids them loose from land:
With olive-leaves he binds his brow,
Then takes his station on the prow,
A charger in his hand,
Flings out the entrails on the brine,
And pours a sacred stream of wine.
Fair winds escort them o'er the deep:
With emulous stroke the waves they sweep.
But Venus, torn by many a fear,
Thus breathes her plaint in Neptune's ear:
'Fell Juno's persecuting ire,
Still raging with unsated fire,
Compels me, Neptune, to abase
My pride, and humbly sue for grace.
No lapse of time, how long soe'er,
Nor all the force of duteous prayer,
Nor hest of Jove, nor will of fate
That changeless rancour can abate.
'Tis not enough to have devoured
A queenly city, walled and towered.
And made the wretched captives drain
E'en to its dregs the cup of pain:
She still pursues the flying rout,
And strives to stamp the last spark out;—
Strange mystery of hatred, known
To none but to herself alone!
Thyself wast there when lately she
Raised tumult in the Libyan sea;
Thou saw'st in what confusion blent
She mingled main and firmament,
Armed with Æolian storms in vain,
In bold defiance of thy reign.
Now, working on the Trojan dames,
She foully wraps our fleet in flames,
And drives the crews, their vessels lost,
To settle on an unknown coast.
Thus then, for what remains, I crave
Thine own safe conduct o'er the wave,
That so, emerging from the main,
Laurentian Tiber they may gain,
If what I ask is ruled in Heaven,
If there the city Fate has given.'
Great Ocean's lord replied: 'Tis just
Cythera's queen my realm should trust,
Which erst her being gave:
And oft-times too has Neptune won
Her confidence by service done
In calming wind and wave:
Nor e'en on earth (let Xanthus speak
And Simois) has my arm been weak
Thy gallant son to save.
When fierce Achilles from the coast
Drove to their walls Troy's panting host,
While the choked rivers gasped for breath,
And gave whole multitudes to death,
And labouring Xanthus strove in vain
To roll his waters to the main,
Then, as Æneas, undismayed,
With weaker strength and feebler aid
Pelides met, I barred the fray,
And bore him in a cloud away,
Though all my will was to destroy
My own creation, perjured Troy.
And now as then my heart is set
To work him good: thy fears forget.
Avernus' haven he shall see
In safety, where he fain would be.
One life alone shall glut the wave;
One head shall fall the rest to save.'
Thus having soothed the goddess' cares,
His fiery steeds the Father pairs,
With foamy bit each fierce mouth checks,
Then flings the reins upon their necks.
Along the surface of the tides
His sea-green chariot smoothly glides:
Hushed by his wheels the billows lie;
The storm-clouds vanish from the sky.
His vassals follow in his wake,
Sea-monsters of enormous make,
Palæmon, child of Ino's strain,
With Glaucus' venerable train,
And Tritons, swift to cleave the flood,
And Phorcus' finny multitude.
Then Thetis comes, and Melite,
Nesæe, Spio, Panope,
Thalia and Cymodoce.
A pleasing joy succeeds to fear
In good Æneas' mind:
He bids them all their masts uprear,
And spread their sails to wind.
All at the word throughout the fleet
Stretch out the canvass on the sheet,
Now left, now right, alike they shift:
The gales are kind, the barks fly swift;
First Palinurus leads the way;
The rest observe him, and obey.
Now Night's fleet coursers almost reach
The summit of the sky:
The weary oarsmen, all and each,
Along the benches lie,
When lo! false Sleep, on pinions light,
Drops down from heaven and cleaves the night;
Sad dreams to thee beneath his wings,
Unhappy Palinure, he brings,
Lights on the stern in Phorbas' guise,
And thus with soft enticement plies:
'See, Palinure, the vessels glide
E'en with the motion of the tide;
The breeze with steady current blows;
The very hour invites repose:
Rest your tired head, and for awhile
Those hard-tasked eyes of toil beguile;
Myself will take, for that short space,
The rudder, and supply your place.'
Scarce lifting from the heaven his eyes,
The wary Palinure replies:
'What? I the dupe of Ocean's wiles?
I trust this fiend that fawns and smiles?
Commit Æneas to the gale,
Who oft have proved how false its tale?'
Thus as he speaks, his hand and eye
Cleave to the rudder and the sky;
When lo! the god a slumberous bough
With dews of Styx and Lethe wet
Shakes gently o'er the watcher's brow,
And seals those eyes, so firmly set.
Scarce had the loosening limbs given way,
The demon falls upon his prey,
And hurls him, dragging wood-work rent
And rudder in his prone descent,
With headlong ruin to the main,
Invoking friendly aid in vain:
Himself resumes his wings, and flies
Aloft into the buoyant skies.
Yet still the fleet by Neptune's aid
Floats onward, safe and undismayed,
Till as they near the Sirens' shore,
A perilous neighbourhood of yore
And white with mounded bones,
Where the hoarse sea with far-heard roar
Keeps washing on the stones,
The good chief feels the vessel sway,
No steersman to direct its way,
And takes himself the helm, and guides
Their progress through the darkling tides.
Full many a heart-fetched groan he heaved,
Thus of his hapless friend bereaved:
'Ah fatal confidence, too prone
To trust in sea and sky!
A naked corpse on shores unknown
Shall Palinurus lie!'
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