Then old Evander, with a close embrace,
Strained his departing friend; and tears o'erflow
"Would heaven (said he) my strength and youth
Such as I was beneath Præneste's wall
Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
And set whole heaps of conquered shields on fire; 745
When Herilus in single fight I slew,
Whom with three lives Feronia did endue;
And thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,
Till the last ebbing soul returned no more-
Such if I stood renewed, not these alarms,
Nor death, should rend me from my Pallas' arms;
Nor proud Mezentius thus, unpunished, boast
His rapes and murders on the Tuscan coast.
Ye gods and mighty Jove! in pity bring
Relief, and hear a father and a king!
If fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
My son returned with peace and victory;
If the loved boy shall bless his father's sight;
If we shall meet again with more delight;
Then draw my life in length; let me sustain,
In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
But, if your hard decrees-which, O! I dread-
Have doomed to death his undeserving head;
This, O! this very moment let me die,
While hopes and fears in equal balance lie;
While, yet possessed of all his youthful charms,
I strain him close within these aged arms-
Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!"
He said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground.
His servants bore him off, and softly laid
His languished limbs upon his homely bed.
The horsemen march; the gates are opened
Æneas at their head, Achates by his side.
Next these, the Trojan leaders rode along;
Last, follows in the rear the Arcadian throng.
Young Pallas shone conspicuous o'er the rest;
Gilded his arms, embroidered was his vest.
So, from the seas, exerts his radiant head
The star, by whom the lights of heaven are led ;
Shakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews,
Dispels the darkness, and the day renews.
The trembling wives the walls and turrets crowd,
And follow, with their eyes, the dusty cloud,
Which winds disperse by fits, and show from far
The blaze of arms, and shields, and shining war.
The troops, drawn up in beautiful array,
O'er heathy plains pursue the ready way.
Repeated peals of shouts are heard around;
The neighing coursers answer to the sound,
And shake with horny hoofs the solid ground.
A greenwood shade, for long religion known,
Stands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town,
Encompassed round with gloomy hills above,
Which add a holy horror to the grove.
The first inhabitants, of Grecian blood,
That sacred forest to Silvanus vowed,
The guardian of their flocks and fields-and pay
Their due devotions on his annual day.
Not far from hence, along the river's side,
In tents secure, the Tuscan troops abide,
By Tarchon led. Now, from a rising ground,
Eneas cast his wondering eyes around,
And all the Tyrrhene army had in sight,
Stretched on the spacious plain from left to right.
Thither his warlike train the Trojan led,
Refreshed his men, and wearied horses fed.
Meantime the mother goddess, crowned with charms,
Breaks through the clouds, and brings the fated
Within a winding vale she finds her son,
On the cool river's banks, retired alone.
She shows her heavenly form without disguise,
And gives herself to his desiring eyes.
"Behold (she said) performed, in every part,
My promise made, and Vulcan's laboured art.
Now seek, secure, the Latian enemy,
And haughty Turnus to the field defy."
She said; and, having first her son embraced,
The radiant arms beneath an oak she placed.
Proud of the gift, he rolled his greedy sight
Around the work, and gazed with vast delight.
He lifts, he turns, he poises, and admires
The crested helm, that vomits radiant fires:
His hands the fatal sword and corselet hold,
One keen with tempered steel, one stiff with gold:
Both ample, flaming both, and beamy bright;
So shines a cloud, when edged with adverse light.
He shakes the pointed spear, and longs to try
The plaited cuishes on his manly thigh;
But most admires the shield's mysterious mould,
And Roman triumphs rising on the gold:
For those, embossed, the heavenly smith had wrought
(Not in the rolls of future fate untaught)
The wars in order, and the race divine
Of warriors issuing from the Julian line.
The cave of Mars was dressed with mossy greens: 835
There, by the wolf, were laid the martial twins.
Intrepid on her swelling dugs they hung:
The foster-dam lolled out her fawning tongue :
They sucked secure, while, bending back her head,
She licked their tender limbs, and formed them as
they fed.
Not far from thence new Rome appears, with games
Projected for the rape of Sabine dames.
The pit resounds with shrieks; a war succeeds,
For breach of public faith, and unexampled deeds.
Here for revenge the Sabine troops contend;
The Romans there with arms the prey defend.
Wearied with tedious war, at length they cease;
And both the kings and kingdoms plight the
The friendly chiefs before Jove's altar stand,
Both armed, with each a charger in his hand : 850
A fatted sow for sacrifice is led,
With imprecations on the perjured head.
Near this, the traitor Metius, stretched between
Four fiery steeds, is dragged along the green,
By Tullus' doom: the brambles drink his blood;
And his torn limbs are left, the vulture's food.
There, Porsena to Rome proud Tarquin brings,
And would by force restore the banished kings.
One tyrant for his fellow-tyrant fights:
The Roman youth assert their native rights.
Before the town the Tuscan army lies,
To win by famine, or by fraud surprise.
Their king, half-threatening, half-disdaining stood,
While Cocles broke the bridge, and stemmed the
flood.
The captive maids there tempt the raging tide,
'Scaped from their chains, with Cloelia for their guide.
High on a rock heroic Manlius stood,
To guard the temple, and the temple's god.
Then Rome was poor; and there you might behold
The palace thatched with straw, now roofed with
The silver goose before the shining gate
There flew, and, by her cackle, saved the state.
She told the Gauls' approach: the approaching
Obscure in night, ascend, and seize the walls.
The gold dissembled well their yellow hair,
And golden chains on their white necks they wear.
Gold are their vests; long Alpine spears they wield,
And their left arm sustains a length of shield.
Hard by, the leaping Salian priests advance;
And naked through the streets the mad Luperci
In caps of wool; the targets dropt from heaven.
Here modest matrons, in soft litters driven,
To pay their vows in solemn pomp appear,
And odorous gums in their chaste hands they bear.
Far hence removed, the Stygian seats are seen;
Pains of the damned, and punished Catiline,
Hung on a rock-the traitor; and, around,
The Furies hissing from the nether ground.
Apart from these, the happy souls he draws,
And Cato's holy ghost dispensing laws.
Betwixt the quarters flows a golden sea;
But foaming surges there in silver play.
The dancing dolphins with their tails divide
The glittering waves, and cut the precious tide.
Amid the main, two mighty fleets engage-
Their brazen beaks opposed with equal rage.
Actium surveys the well-disputed prize :
Leucate's watery plain with foamy billows fries.
Young Cæsar, on the stern, in armour bright,
Here leads the Romans and their gods to fight:
His beamy temples shoot their flames afar,
And o'er his head is hung the Julian star.
Agrippa seconds him, with prosperous gales,
And, with propitious gods, his foes assails.
A naval crown, that binds his manly brows,
The happy fortune of the fight foreshows.
Ranged on the line opposed, Antonius brings
Barbarian aids, and troops of Eastern kings,
The Arabians near, and Bactrians from afar,
Of tongues discordant, and a mingled war:
And, rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife,
His ill fate follows him-the Egyptian wife.
Moving they fight: with oars and forky prows,
The froth is gathered, and the water glows.
|