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15433.4

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
MAR 5 1941

BHT

BOZIOM-TIBKYK GOCILLA

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Æ NEÏS.

BOOK VIII.

ARGUMENT.

The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible Turnus sends to Diomedes.

Eneas goes

preparations.
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 powers,
His standard planted on Laurentum's towers,
When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,
Had given the signal of approaching war,

Had roused the neighing steeds to scour the fields, 5
While the fierce riders clattered on their shields,
Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
To join the allies, and headlong rush to war.
Fierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,
With bold Mezentius, who blasphemed aloud.
These through the country took their wasteful

course,

The fields to forage, and to gather force.

Then Venulus to Diomede they send,

To beg his aid Ausonia to defend,

VOL. XV.

A

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Declare the common danger, and inform
The Grecian leader of the growing storm:
"Æneas, landed on the Latian coast,
With banished gods, and with a baffled host,
Yet now aspired to conquest of the state,
And claimed a title from the gods and fate;
What numerous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name.
What he designed, what mischiefs might arise,
If fortune favoured his first enterprise,
Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
And common interest, was involved in theirs."
While Turnus and the 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 designed;
Explores himself in vain, in every part,
And gives no rest to his distracted heart.
So, when the sun by day, or moon by night,

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Strike on the polished brass their trembling light,* 35
The glittering 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.

'Twas night; and weary nature lulled asleep
The birds of air, and fishes of the deep,
And beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan chief
Was laid on Tiber's banks, oppressed with grief,
And found, in silent slumber, late relief.

This similitude is literally taken from Apollonius Rhodius; and it is hard to say whether the original or the translation excels. But, in the shield which he describes afterwards in this Eneïd, he as much transcends his master Homer, as the arms of Glaucus were richer than those of Diomedes-Xpvoca χαλκειων.-Ι.

† [In the sense of "reflections."-ED.]

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