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The house was filled with foes, with flames beset.
Driven on the wings of winds, whole sheets of fire,
Through air transported, to the roofs aspire.
From thence to Priam's palace I resort;
And search the citadel, and desert court.
Then, unobserved, I pass by Juno's church ;
A guard of Grecians had possessed the porch :
There Phoenix and Ulysses watch the prey;
And thither all the wealth of Troy convey.

The spoils which they from ransacked houses brought;
And golden bowls from burning altars caught,
The tables of the gods, the purple vests;

The people's treasure, and the pomp of priests,
A rank of wretched youths with pinioned hands,
And captive matrons in long order stands.
Then, with ungoverned madness, I proclaim,
Through all the silent streets, Creusa's name.
Creusa still I call: at length she hears;

And sudden, through the shades of night appears.
Appears, no more Creusa nor my wife:

But a pale spectre, larger than the life.

Aghast, astonished, and struck dumb with fear,

I stood; like bristles rose my stiffened hair.

Then thus the ghost began to sooth my grief :

Nor tears, nor cries, can give the dead relief;

Desist, my much-loved lord, to indulge your pain:
You bear no more than what the gods ordain.
My fates permit me not from hence to fly ;
Nor he, the great comptroller of the sky.
Long wandering ways for you the powers decree :
On land hard labours, and a length of sea.
Then, after many painful years are past,
On Latium's happy shore you shall be cast:
Where gentle Tiber from his bed beholds
The flowery meadows and the feeding folds.
There end your toils, and there your fates provide
A quiet kingdom and a royal bride :

There fortune shall the Trojan line restore;
And you for lost Creusa weep no more.

Fear not that I shall watch with servile shame

The imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame
Or, stooping to the victor's lust, disgrace
My goddess-mother or my royal race.
And now, farewell; the parent of the gods
Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:
I trust our common issue to your care,'

She said and gliding passed unseen in air.
I strove to speak, but horror tied my tongue;
And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,
And thrice deceived, on vain embraces hung.
Light as an empty dream at break of day,
Or as a blast of wind, she rushed away.

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Thus, having passed the night in fruitless pain, I to my longing friends return again ;

Amazed the augmented number to behold,
Of men and matrons mixed, of young and old-
A wretched exiled crew together brought,
With arms appointed, and with treasure fraught;
Resolved, and willing under my command,
To run all hazards both of sea and land.
The morn began from Ida to display

Her rosy cheeks, and Phosphor led the day;
Before the gates the Grecians took their post;
And all pretence of late relief was lost.

I yield to fate, unwillingly retire,

And, loaded, up the hill convey my sire."

BOOK III.

THE ARGUMENT.

Æneas proceeds in his relation. He gives an account of the fleet with which he sailed, and the success of his first voyage to Thrace; from thence he directs his course to Delos, and asks the Oracle what place the gods had appointed for his habitation. By a mistake of the Oracle's answer, he settles in Crete. His household gods give him the true sense of the Oracle in a dream. He follows their advice, and makes the best of his way for Italy. He is cast on several shores, and meets with very surprising adventures, till at length he lands on Sicily, where his father Anchises dies. This is the place which he was sailing from when the tempest rose and threw him upon the Carthaginian coast.

"WHEN heaven had overturned the Trojan state,
And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate;
When ruined Troy became the Grecian's prey,
And Ilium's lofty towers in ashes lay;
Warned by celestial omens, we retreat,
To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.
Near old Antandros, and at Ida's foot,
The timber of the sacred groves we cut,
And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find
What place the gods for our repose assigned.
Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing:
When old Anchises summoned all to sea;
The crew, my father, and the fates obey.
With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,
And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.
My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,
All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.

Against our coast appears a spacious land,
Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command;
Thracia the name; the people bold in war;
Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care.
A hospitable realm, while fate was kind;
With Troy in friendship and religion joined.
I land with luckless omens, then adore
Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;

I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
And Enos, named from me, the city call.
To Dionœan Venus vows are paid,
And all the powers that rising labours aid;
A bull on Jove's imperial altar laid.
Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;
Sharp myrtles on the sides and cornels grew.
There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
And shade our altar with their leafy greens ;
I pulled a plant (with horror I relate
A prodigy so strange, and full of fate).
The rooted fibres rose, and from the wound,
Black bloody drops distilled upon the ground.
Mute and amazed, my hair with terror stood;
Fear shrunk my sinews and congealed my blood.
Manned once again, another plant I try,
That other gushed with the same sanguine dye.
Then, fearing guilt, for some offence unknown,
With prayers and vows the Dryads I atone;
With all the sisters of the woods, and most
The god of arms, who rules the Thracian coast;
That they, or he, these omens would avert,
Release our fears, and better signs impart.
Cleared, as I thought, and fully fixed at length
To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength;
I bent my knees against the ground; once more
The violated myrtle ran with gore.

Scarce dare I tell the sequel; from the womb
Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,
A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renewed

My fright, and then these dreadful words ensued:
'Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?

spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend;
Spare to pollute thy pious hands with blood;
The tears distil not from the wounded wood,
But every drop this living tree contains

Is kindred blood, and ran in Trojan veins.
O fly from this unhospitable shore,
Warned by my fate, for I am Polydore.
Here loads of lances, in my blood imbrued,
Again shoot upward, by my blood renewed.

"My faltering tongue and shivering limbs declare My horror, and in bristles rose my hair.

When Troy with Grecian arms was closely pent,
Old Priam, fearful of the war's event,

This hapless Polydore to Thracia sent,

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Loaded with gold he sent his darling far
From noise and tumults and destructive war-
Committed to the faithless tyrant's care;
Who, when he saw the power of Troy decline,
Forsook the weaker with the strong to join.
Broke every bond of nature and of truth,
And murdered, for his wealth, the royal youth.
O sacred hunger of pernicious gold,
What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?
Now when my soul had shaken off her fears,
I call my father and the Trojan peers;
Relate the prodigies of Heaven, require
What he commands, and their advice desire.
All vote to leave that execrable shore,
Polluted with the blood of Polydore.
But e'er we sail, his funeral rites prepare,
Then to his ghost a tomb and altars rear.
In mournful pomp the matrons walk the round,
With baleful cypress and blue fillets crowned;
With eyes dejected and with hair unbound.
Then bowls of tepid milk and blood we pour,
And thrice invoke the soul of Polydore.

"Now when the raging storms no longer reign,
But southern gales invite us to the main,
We launch our vessels with a prosperous wind,
And leave the cities and the shores behind.

"An island in the Ægean main appears;
Neptune and watery Doris claim it theirs.
It floated once, till Phœbus fixed the sides
To rooted earth, and now it braves the tides.
Here, borne by friendly winds, we come ashore,
With needful ease our weary limbs restore,
And the sun's temple, and his town adore.

"Anius the priest, and king, with laurel crowned,
His hoary locks with purple fillets bound,
Who saw my sire the Delian shore ascend,

Came forth with eager haste to meet his friend :
Invites him to his palace, and in sign

Of ancient love, their plighted hands they join.

Then to the temple of the god I went,

And thus before the shrine my vows present;

'Give, O Thymbræus, give a resting-place

To the sad relics of the Trojan race :

A seat secure, a region of their own,

A lasting empire and a happier town.

Where shall we fix, where shall our labours end?

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