When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse. Ah, couldst thou break through Fate's severe decree, A new Marcellus shall arise in thee !

Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring,

Mixed with the purple roses of the spring :
Let me with funeral flowers his body strew,
This gift which parents to their children owe,
This unavailing gift at least I may bestow."
Thus having said, he led the hero round
The confines of the blessed Elysian ground;
Which, when Anchises to his son had shown,
And fired his mind to mount the promised throne,
He tells the future wars ordained by fate,
The strength and customs of the Latian state,
The prince and people; and forearms his care
With rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.
Two gates the silent House of Sleep adorn—
Of polished ivory this, that of transparent horn.
True visions through transparent horn arise,
Through polished ivory pass deluding lies.
Of various things discoursing as he passed,
Anchises hither bends his steps at last.
Then through the gate of ivory he dismissed
His valiant offspring and divining guest.
Straight to the ships Æneas took his way,
Embarked his men, and skimmed along the sea,
Still coasting, till he gained Cajeta's bay.
At length on oozy ground his galleys moor,

Their heads are turned to sea, their sterns to shore.

BOOK VII.

THE ARGUMENT.

King Latinus entertains Æneas, and promises him his only daughter Lavinia, the heiress of his crown. Turnus being in love with her, favoured by her mother, and stirred up by Juno and Electo, breaks the treaty which was made, and engages in his quarrel Mezentius, Camilla, Messapus, and many other of the neighbouring princes, whose forces and the names of their commanders are particularly related.

AND thou, O matron of immortal fame!

Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name!
Cajeta still the place is called from thee,
The nurse of great Æneas' infancy.

Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia's plains,
Thy name ('tis all a ghost can have) remains.

Now, when the prince her funeral rites had paid,
He ploughed the Tyrrhene seas with sails displayed;
From land a gentle breeze arose by night,
Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright,
And the sea trembled with her silver light.
Now near the shelves of Circe's shores they run
(Circe the rich, the daughter of the sun),

A dangerous coast. The goddess wastes her days
In joyous songs, the rocks resound her lays;
In spinning or the loom she spends the night,
And cedar brands supply her father's light,
From hence were heard (rebellowing to the main)
The roars of lions that refuse the chain,

The grunts of bristled boars and groans of bears,
And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors' ears.
These from their caverns, at the close of night,
Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.

Darkling they mourn their fate whom Circe's power
(That watched the moon and planetary hour)
With words and wicked herbs from human kind
Had altered, and in brutal shapes confined;
Which monsters, lest the Trojans' pious host

Should bear or touch upon the enchanted coast,
Propitious Neptune steered their course by night
With rising gales that sped their happy flight ;-
Supplied with these they skim the sounding shore,
And hear the swelling surges vainly roar.
Now when the rosy morn began to rise,

And waved her saffron streamer through the skies-
When Thetis blushed in purple not her own,

And from her face the breathing winds were blownA sudden silence sate upon the sea,

And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way. The Trojan from the main beheld a wood,

Which, thick with shades and a brown horror, stood;
Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,

With whirlpools dimpled, and with downward force
That drove the sand along he took his way,
And rolled his yellow billows to the sea;
About him and above and round the wood,
The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,
That bathed within or basked upon his side,
To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.
The captain gives command, the joyful train
Glide through the gloomy shade and leave the main.
Now, Erato, thy poet's mind inspire,

And fill his soul with thy celestial fire;
Relate what Latium was, her ancient kings;
Declare the past and present state of things,
When first the Trojan fleet Ausonia sought,
And how the rivals loved and how they fought :
These are my theme, and how the war began,
And how concluded by the godlike man.
For I shall sing of battles, blood, and rage,
Which princes and their people did engage;
And haughty souls that moved with mutual hate,
In fighting fields pursued and found their fate;
That roused the Tyrrhene realm with loud alarms,
And peaceful Italy involved in arms.

A larger scene of action is displayed,
And rising hence a greater work is weighed.
Latinus, old and mild, had long possessed
The Latian sceptre, and his people blessed;
His father Faunus; a Laurentian dame
His mother, fair Marica was her name.
But Faunus came from Picus, Picus drew
His birth from Saturn, if records be true.
Thus King Latinus, in the third degree,

Had Saturn author of his family.

But this old peaceful prince, as heaven decreed,
Was blessed with no male issue to succeed;

His sons in blooming youth were snatched by fate,
One only daughter heired the royal state.
Fired with her love and with ambition led,
The neighbouring princes court her nuptial bed.
Among the crowd, but far above the rest,

Young Turnus to the beauteous maid addressed-
Turnus, for high descent and graceful mien,
Was first, and favoured by the Latian queen;
With him she strove to join Lavinia's hand,
But dire portents the purposed match withstand.
Deep in the palace, of long growth, there stood
A laurel's trunk, a venerable wood,

Where rites divine were paid, whose holy hair
Was kept and cut with superstitious care.
This plant Latinus, when his town he walled,
Then found, and from the tree Laurentum called;
And last, in honour of his new abode,
He vowed the laurel to the laurel's god.
It happened once (a boding prodigy)
A swarm of bees, that cut the liquid sky,
Unknown from whence they took their airy flight,
Upon the topmost branch in clouds alight;
There with their clasping feet together clung,
And a long cluster from the laurel hung.
An ancient augur prophesied from hence :
"Behold, on Latian shores a foreign prince;
From the same parts of heaven his navy stands,
To the same parts on earth. His army lands;
The town he conquers and the tower commands."
Yet more, when fair Lavinia fed the fire
Before the gods, and stood beside her sire,
Strange to relate, the flames, involved in smoke
Of incense, from the sacred altar broke,
Caught her dishevelled hair and rich attire ;
Her crown and jewels crackled in the fire.
From thence the fuming trail began to spread,
And lambent glories danced about her head.
This new portent the seer with wonder views,
Then pausing, thus his prophecy renews :
"The nymph who scatters flaming fires around
Shall shine with honour, shall herself be crowned;
But, caused by her irrevocable fate,

War shall the country waste and change the state.

Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent,

For counsel to his father Faunus went,

And sought the shades renowned for prophecy,
Which near Albunea's sulphurous fountain lie.
To those the Latian and the Sabine land
Fly when distressed, and thence relief demand.
The priest on skins of offerings takes his ease,
And nightly visions in his slumber sees;

A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears,

And, fluttering round his temples, deafs his ears.
These he consults the future fates to know,
From powers above and from the fiends below.
Here, for the god's advice, Latinus flies,
Offering a hundred sheep for sacrifice;
Their woolly fleeces, as the rites required,
He laid beneath him, and to rest retired.
No sooner were his eyes in slumber bound,
When from above a more than mortal sound
Invades his ears, and thus the vision spoke :
"Seek not, my seed, in Latian bands to yoke
Our fair Lavinia, nor the gods provoke ;
A foreign son upon the shore descends,
Whose martial fame from pole to pole extends—
His race in arms and arts of peace renowned,
Not Latium shall contain, nor Europe bound;
'Tis theirs whate'er the sun surveys around.
These answers in the silent night received,
The king himself divulged, the land believed;
The fame through all the neighbouring nations flew,
When now the Trojan navy was in view.

Beneath a shady tree the hero spread
His table on the turf, with cakes of bread,
And with his chiefs on forest fruits he fed.
They sate and (not without the god's command)
Their homely fare dispatched ; the hungry band
Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observed, and smiling said:

.་

'See, we devour the plates on which we fed."

The speech had omen that the Trojan race

Should find repose, and this the time and place. Æneas took the word, and thus replies (Confessing fate with wonder in his eyes): "All hail, O earth! all hail my household godsBehold the destined place of your abodes, For thus Anchises prophesied of old,