For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood, Are coursers driv'n, who shed their master's blood,

Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
His son, the second Virbius, yet retain'd
His father's art, and warrior steeds he rein'd.

Amid the troops, and like the leading god, High o'er the rest in arms, the graceful Turnus rode :

A triple pile of plumes his crest adorn'd,
On which, with belching flames, Chimæra
burn'd:

The more the kindled combat rises higher,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire.
Fair Io grac'd his shield; but Iō now
With horns exalted stands, and seems
low-

to

A noble charge! Her keeper by her side,
To watch her walks, her hundred eyes ap
plied;

And on the brims, her sire, the wat❜ry god,
Roll'd from his silver urn his crystal flood.
A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields
With swords, and pointed spears, and clat-
t'ring shields;

Of Argive, and of old Sicanian bands,
And those who plough the rich Rutulian lands;
Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
And the proud Lubicans, with painted shields,
And those who near Numician streams re-
side,

And those whom Tibur's holy forests hide,
Or Circe's hills from the main land divide,
Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
Or the black water of Pomptina stands.

Last from the Volscians fair Camilla came,
And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame:
Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd,
She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
Mix'd with the first, the fierce virago fought,
Sustain'd the toils of arms, the dangers sought;
Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded
grain:

She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along,

Her flying feet, unbath'd, on billows hung.
Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,
Where'er she passes fix their wond'ring eyes:
Longing they look, and gaping at the sight,
Devour her o'er and o'er with vast delight;
Her purple habit sits with such a grace
On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her
face:

Her head with ringlets of her hair is crown'd;
And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
She shakes her myrtle jav'lin; and, behind
Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.

BOOK VIII.

ARGUMENT.

The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible_preparations. Turnus sends to Diomedes. Eneas goes in person to beg succours from Evander and the Tuscans. Evander receives him kindly, furnishes him with men, and sends his son Pallas with him. Vulcan, at the request of Venus, makes arms for her son Æneas, and draws on his shield the most memorable actions of his posterity.

WHEN Turnus had assembled all his pow'rs,
His standard planted on Laurentum's tow'rs,
When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar
Had giv'n the signal of approaching war,
Had rous'd the neighing steeds to scour the

fields,

While the fierce riders clatter'd on their shields, Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare To join th' allies, and headlong rush to war. Fierce Ufens, and Messapus led the crowd, With bold Mezentius, who blasphem'd aloud. These through the country took their wasteful

course,

The fields to forage, and to gather force.
Then Venelus to Diomede they send,
To beg his aid, Ausonia to defend,
Declare the common danger, and inform
The Grecian leader of the growing storm:
"Eneas, landed on the Latian coast,
With banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,
Yet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,
And claim'd a title from the gods and fate;
What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name,
What he design'd, what mischiefs might arise,
If fortune favour'd his first enterprise,

Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears
And common int'rest was involv'd in theirs."
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the

war,

The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
Beholds the tempest which his foes prepare.
This way and that he turns his anxious mind;
Thinks and rejects the counsels he design'd;
Explores himself in vain, in ev'ry part,
And gives no rest to his distracted heart.
So when the sun by day, or moon by night,
Stike on the polish'd brass their trembling

light,

The glitt'ring species here and there divide,
And cast their dubious beams from side to side.
Now on the walls, now on the pavement play,
And to the ceiling flash the glaring day.
'T was night: and weary nature lull'd asleep
The birds of air, and fishes of the deep,
And beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan
chief

But, when they saw the ships that stemm'd the flood,

And glitter'd through the covert of the wood,
They rose with fear, and left th' unfinish'd feast,
Till daundless Pallas reassur'd the rest
To pay the rites. Himself without delay
A jav'lin seiz'd, and singly took his way.
Then gain'd a rising ground, and call'd from far:
"Resolve me, strangers, whence, and what you
are;

Your bus'ness here; and bring you peace or war ?"

High on the stern Æneas took his stand,
And held a branch of olive in his hand,
While thus he spoke: "The Phyrgians' arms
you see,

Expell'd from Troy, provok'd in Italy
By Latian foes, with war unjustly made-
At first affianc'd, and at last betray'd,

This message bear: The Trojans and their chief

Bring holy peace, and beg the king's relief." Struck with so great a name, and all on fire, The youth replies: "Whatever you require, Your fame exacts. Upon our shores descend, A welcome guest, and, what you wish, a friend. He said, and downward hasting to the strand, Embrac'd the stranger prince, and join'd his hand.

Conducted to the grove, Eneas broke

The silence first, and thus the king bespoke : "Best of the Greeks! to whom by fate's command,

I bear these peaceful branches in my hand-
Undaunted I approach you, though I know
Your birth is Grecian, and your land my foe:
From Atreus though your ancient lineage came,
And both the brother kings your kindred claim:
Yet my self-conscious worth, your high renown,
Your virtue, through the neighb'ring nations
blown,

Our fathers' mingled blood, Apollo's voice,
Have led me hither, less by need than choice,
Our father Dardanus, as fame has sung,
And Greeks acknowledge, from Electra sprung:
Electra from the loins of Atlas came-
Atlas whose head sustains the starry frame.
Your sire is Mercury, whom long before
On cold Cyllene's top fair Maia bore.
Maia the fair, on fame if we rely,
Was Atlas' daughter, who sustains the sky.
Thus from one common source our streams
divide:

Ours is the Trojan, yours th' Arcadian side.
Rais'd by these hopes, I sent no news before,
Nor ask'd your leave, nor did your faith implore;
But come,
without a pledge, my own ambas-
sador.

The same Rutulians, who with arms pursue
The Trojan race, are equal foes to you.
Our host expell'd, what further force can stay
The victor troops from universal sway?
Then will they stretch their pow'r athwart the
land,

And either sea from side to side command.
Receive our offer'd faith, and give us thine :
Ours is a generous and experienc'd line:
We want not hearts nor bodies for the war;
In council cautious, and in fields we dare."
He said: and, while he spoke, with piercing
eyes

Evander view'd the man with vast surprise-
Pleas'd with his action, ravish'd with his face;
Then answer'd briefly, with a royal grace:
"O valiant leader of the Trojan line,
In whom the features of thy father shine?
How I recall Anchises! how I see
His motion, mien, and all my friend, in thee!
Long though it be, 't is fresh within my mind,
When Priam to his sister's court design'd
A welcome visit, with a friendly stay,
And through th' Arcadian kingdom took his way.
Then past a boy, the callow down began
To shade my chin, and call me first a man.
I saw the shining train with vast delight
And Priam's goodly person pleas'd my sight:
But great Anchises, far above the rest
With awful wonder fir'd my youthful breast.
I long'd to join, in friendship's holy bands,
Our mutual hearts, and plight our mutual hands.
I first accosted him: I sued, I sought,
And, with a loving force, to Pheneus brought.
He gave me, when at length constrain'd to go,
A Lycian quiver and a Gnossian bow,
A vest embroider'd, glorious to behold,
And two rich bridles, with their bits of gold,
Which my son's coursers in obedience hold.
The league you ask, I offer, as your right;
And when to-morrow's sun reveals the light,
With swift supplies you shall be sent away.
Now celebrate with us this solemn day,
Whose holy rites admit no long delay.
Honour our annual feast; and take your seat,
With friendly welcome, at a friendly treat."
Thus having said, the bowls remov❜d (for fear)
The youth replac❜d, and soon restor❜d the cheer.
On sods of turf he set the soldiers round:
A maple throne, rais'd higher from the ground,
Receiv'd the Trojan chief; and o'er the bed
A lion's shaggy hide, for ornament they spread.
The loaves were serv'd in canisters: the wine
In bowls; the priest renew'd the rites divine:
Broil'd entrails are the food, and beefs continued
chine.

But, when the rage of hunger was repress'd,
Thus spoke Evander to his royal guest:

"These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,

From no vain fears or superstition spring,
Or blind devotion, or from blinder chance,
Or heady zeal, or brutal ignorance:
But sav'd from danger, with a grateful sense,
The labours of a god we recompense.
See, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky;
About whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie;
Such undigested ruin; bleak and bare,
How desert now it stands, expos'd in air!
'T was once a robber's den, enclos❜d around
With living stone, and deep beneath the ground.
The monster Cacus, more than half a beast,
This hold, impervious to the sun, possess❜d.
The pavement ever foul with human gore;
Heads, and their mangled members, hung the
door.

Vulcan this plague begot: and, like his sire,
Black clouds he belch'd and flakes of livid fire.
Time, long expected, eas'd us of our load,
And brought the needful presence of a god.
Th' avenging force of Hercules, from Spain,
Arriv'd in triumph, from Geryon slain :-
Thrice liv'd the giant, and thrice liv'd in vain.
His prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove
Near Tyber's banks, to graze the shady grove.
Allur'd with hope of plunder, and intent
By force to rob, by fraud to circumvent,
The brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray'd,
Four oxen thence, and four fair kine, convey'd.
And, lest the printed footsteps might be seen,
He dragg'd them backwards to his rocky den.
The tracks averse a lying notice gave,
And led the searcher backward from the cave.
Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place
To find fresh pasture and untrodden grass.
The beasts, who miss'd their mates, fill'd all
around

He broke the heavy links, the mountain clos'd,
And bars and levers to his foe oppos'd.
The wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast;
The fierce avenger came with bounding haste;
Survey'd the mouth of the forbidden hold;
And here and there his raging eyes he roll'd.
He gnash'd his teeth; and thrice he compass'd
round

With winged speed the circuit of the ground.
Thrice at the cavern's mouth he pull'd in vain;
And, panting, thrice desisted from his pain:
A pointed, flinty rock, all bare and black,
Grew gibbous from behind the mountain's back;
Owls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,
Here built their nests, and hither wing'd their
flight.

The leaning head hung threat'ning oer the flood,

And nodded to the left. The hero stood
Averse, with planted feet, and from the right,
Tugg'd at the solid stone with all his might.
Thus heav'd, the fix'd foundations of the rock
Gave way: heaven echo'd at the ratt'ling shock.
Tumbling, it chok'd the flood: on either side
The banks leap backward, and the streams di-
vide:

The sky shrunk upward with unusual dread;
And trembling Tyber div'd beneath his bed.
The court of Cacus stands reveal'd to sight:
The cavern glares with new-admitted light.
So the pent vapours, with a rumbling sound,
Heave from below, and rend the hollow ground;
A sounding flaw succeeds; and, from on high,
The gods with hate behold the nether sky:
The ghosts repine at violated night,

And curse th' invading sun, and sicken at the sight.

The graceless monster, caught in open day,
Enclos'd, and in despair to fly away,

His hollow palace with unmanly yells.
The hero stands above, and from afar
Plies him with darts, and stones, and distant

war.

He from his nostrils, and huge mouth, expires
Black clouds of smoke, amidst his father's fires;
Gath'ring, with each repeated blast, the night,
To make uncertain aim, and erring sight.
The watchful god then plunges from above,
And, where in thickest waves, the sparkles
drove,

There lights; and wades through fumes, and gropes his way,

Half sing'd, half stifled, till he grasps his prey. The monster spewing fruitless flames, he found; He squeez'd his throat; he writh'd his neck

around,

And in a knot his crippled members bound;

Then from their sockets tore his burning eyes: Roll'd on a heap, the breathless robber lies. The doors, unbarr'd, receive the rushing day; And thorough lights disclose the ravish'd prey; The bulls, redeem'd, breathe open air again. Next, by the feet they drag him from his den. The wond'ring neighbourhood, with glad surprise,

Beheld his shagged breast, his giant size,
His mouth that flames no more, and his extin-
guish'd eyes.

From that auspicious day, with rites divine,
We worship at the hero's holy shrine.

Portitius first ordain'd these annual vows:
As priests were added the Pinarian house,
Who rais'd this altar in the sacred shade,
Where honours, ever due, for ever shall be
paid.

For these deserts, and this high virtue shown,
Ye warlike youths, your heads with garlands

Held high the flaming tapers in their hands,
As custom had prescrib'd their holy bands;
Then with a second course the tables load,
And with full chargers offer to the god.
The Salii sing, and 'cense his altars round
With Saban smoke, their heads with poplar
bound-

One choir of old, another of the young,
To dance, and bear the burden of the song.
The lay records the labours, and the praise,
And all th' immortal acts of Hercules:

First, how the mighty babe, when swath'd in bands,

The serpent strangled with his infant hands;
Then, as in years and matchless force he grew,
Th' Echalian walls, and Trojan, overthew.
Besides a thousand hazards they relate,
Procur'd by Juno's and Eurystheus' hate.
"Thy hands, unconqur'd hero, could subdue
The cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster

crew:

Nor thy resistless arm the bull withstood, Nor he the roaring terror of the wood. The triple porter of the Stygian seat,

With lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet,
And, seiz'd with fear, forgot his mangled meat.
Th' infernal water trembled at thy sight;
Thee, god! no face of dangers could affright;
Not huge Typhoeus, nor th' unnumber'd snake,
Increas'd with hissing heads, in Lerna's lake.
Hail, Jove's undoubted son! an added grace
To heaven and the great author of thy race;
Receive the grateful off'rings which we pay,
And smile propitious on the solemn day!"
In numbers thus they sung: above the rest,
The den and death of Cacus crown the feast.
The woods to hollow vales convey the sound;
The vales to hills; and hills the notes rebound.
The rites perform'd, the cheerful train retire,
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire,
The Trojan pass'd, the city to survey;
And pleasing talk beguil'd the tedious way.
The stranger cast around his curious eyes,
New objects viewing still with new surprise ;
With greedy joy inquires of various things,
And acts and monuments of ancient kings.
Then thus the founder of the Roman tow'rs:
"These woods were first the seat of Sylvan
pow'rs,

took

Of Nymphs and Fauns, and savage men who
[oak.
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn
Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of lab'ring oxen, nor the shining share,
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gain'd to spare.
Their exercise the chase: the running flood
Supplied their thirst; the trees supplied their
food.

Then Saturn came, who fled the pow'r of Jove,
Robb'd of his realms, and banish'd from above.
The men, dispers'd on hills, to towns he brought,
And laws ordain'd, and civil customs taught,
And Latium call'd the land where safe he lay
From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.
With his mild empire, peace and plenty came;
And thence the golden times deriv'd their name.
A more degen'rate, and discolour'd age
Succeeded this, with avarice and rage.
Th' Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians, came;
And Saturn's empire often chang'd the name.
Then kings-gigantic Tybris and the rest-
With arbitrary sway the land opprest;
For Tyber's flood was Albula before,
Till from the tyrant's fate, his name it bore.
I last arriv'd, driv'n from my native home,
By fortune's pow'r, and fate's resistless doom.
Long toss'd on seas, I sought this happy land,
Warn'd by my mother nymph, and call'd by
heav'n's command."

Thus, walking on, he spoke and show'd the

gate,

Since call'd Carmental by the Roman state;