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,
Spaced from their chains, with Clelia 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 gold. The silver goose before the shining gate
There flew, and by her cackle saved the state.
She told the Gauls' approach; the approaching Gauls,
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 dance
In caps of wool. The targets dropped from heaven :
Here modest matrons in soft litters driven,
Το 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.
It seems as if the Cyclades again
Were rooted up, and jostled in the main ;
Or floating mountains floating mountains meet :
Such is the fierce encounter of the fleet.
Fireballs are thrown, and pointed javelins fly,
The fields of Neptune take a purple dye.
The Queen herself, amidst the loud alarms,
With cymbals tossed her fainting soldiers warms.
Fool as she was, who had not yet divined
Her cruel fate, nor saw the snakes behind.
Her country gods, the monsters of the sky,
Great Neptune, Pallas, and love's Queen defy.
The dog Anubis barks, but barks in vain,
Nor longer dares oppose the ethereal train.
Mars in the middle of the shining shield
Is graved, and strides along the liquid field.
The Diræ souse from heaven with swift descent,
And discord dyed in blood with garments rent
Divides the peace. Her steps Bellona treads,
And shakes her iron rod above their heads.
This seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,
Pours down his arrows, at whose winged flight
The trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,
And soft Sabæans quit the watery field.
The fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,
And, shrinking from the fight, invokes the gales.
Aghast she looks, and heaves her breast for breath,
Panting, and pale with fear of future death.
The God had figured her as driven along
By winds and waves, and scudding through the throng. Just opposite, sad Nilus opens wide
His arms and ample bosom to the tide,
And spreads his mantle o'er the winding coast,
In which he wraps his Queen and hides the flying host.
The victor to the gods his thanks expressed,
And Rome, triumphant, with his presence blessed.
Three hundred temples in the town he placed,
With spoils and altars every temple graced.
Three shining nights and three succeeding days
The fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,
The domes with songs, the theatres with plays.
All altars flame: before each altar lies,
Drenched in his gore, the destined sacrifice.
Great Cæsar sits sublime upon his throne,
Before Apollo's porch of Parian stone :
Accepts the presents vowed for victory,
And hangs the monumental crowns on high.
Vast crowds of vanquished nations march along,
Various in arms, in habit, and in tongue.
Here Mulciber assigns the proper place
For Carians and the ungirt Numidian race;
Then ranks the Thracians in the second row,
With Scythians, expert in the dart and bow.
And here the tamed Euphrates humbly glides,
And there the Rhine submits her swelling tides;
And proud Araxes, whom no bridge could bind,
The Danes' unconquered offspring, marched behind :
And Morini, the last of human kind.
These figures, on the shield divinely wrought,
By Vulcan laboured and by Venus brought,
With joy and wonder filled the hero's thought:
Unknown the names, he yet admires the grace,
And bears aloft the fame and fortune of his race.
Turnus takes advantage of Æneas's absence, fires some of his ships (which are transformed into sea-nymphs), and assaults his camp. The Trojans, reduced to the last extremities, send Nisus and Euryalus to recall Æneas; which furnishes the poet with that admirable episode of their friendship, generosity, and the conclusion of their adventures.
WHILE these affairs in distant places passed,
The various Iris Juno sends with haste,
To find bold Turnus who, with anxious thought,
The secret shade of his great grandsire sought.
Retired alone she found the daring man,
And opened her rosy lips and thus began :
"What none of all the gods could grant thy vows,
That, Turnus, this auspicious day bestows.
Æneas gone to seek the Arcadian prince,
Has left the Trojan camp without defence;
And, short of succours there, employs his pains
In parts remote to raise the Tuscan swains.
Now snatch an hour that favours thy designs;
Unite thy forces and attack their lines."
This said, on equal wings she poised her weight,
And formed a radiant rainbow in her flight.
The Daunian hero lifts his hands and eyes,
And thus invokes the goddess as she flies:
"Iris, the grace of heaven, what power divine
Has sent thee down, through dusky clouds to shine?
See they divide, immortal day appears,
And glittering planets dancing in their spheres :
With joy these happy omens I obey,
And follow to the war the god that leads the way."
Thus having said, as by the brook he stood,
He scooped the water from the crystal flood,
Then with his hands the drops to heaven he throws,
And loads the powers above with offered vows.
Now march the bold confederates through the plain ; Well-horsed, well-clad, a rich and shining train.
Messapus leads the van, and in the rear
The sons of Tyrrheus in bright arms appear;
In the main battle, with his flaming crest,
The mighty Turnus towers above the rest.
Silent they move, majestically slow,
Like ebbing Nile, or Ganges in his flow.
The Trojans view the dusty cloud from far,
And the dark menace of the distant war.
Caicus from the rampire saw it rise,
Blackening the fields, and thickening through the skies. Then to his fellows thus aloud he calls :
What rolling clouds, my friends, approach the walls? Arm, arm, and man the works; prepare your spears
And pointed darts, the Latian host appears."
Thus warned, they shut their gates; with shouts ascend
The bulwarks, and secure their foes attend.
For their wise general with foreseeing care,
Had charged them not to tempt the doubtful war ;
Nor, though provoked, in open fields advance,
But close within their lines attend their chance.
Unwilling, yet they keep the strict command,
And sourly wait in arms the hostile band.
The fiery Turnus flew before the rest;
A piebald steed of Thracian strain he pressed:
His helm of massy gold, and crimson was his crest.
With twenty horse to second his designs,
An unexpected foe, he faced the lines.
"Is there," he said, “in arms who bravely dare, His leader's honour, and his danger share ?"
Then spurring on, his brandished dart he threw,
In sign of war: applauding shouts ensue.
Amazed to find a dastard race that run
Behind the rampires, and the battle shun,
He rides around the camp with rolling eyes,
And stops at every post, and every passage tries.
So roams the nightly wolf about the fold,
Wet with descending showers and stiff with cold;
He howls for hunger, and he grins for pain,
His gnashing teeth are exercised in vain ;
And impotent of anger finds no way
In his distended paws to grasp the prey.
The mothers listen, but the bleating lambs
Securely swig the dug beneath the dams.
Thus ranges eager Turnus o'er the plain,
Sharp with desire and furious with disdain :
Surveys each passage with a piercing sight,
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