Of Argives, and of old Sicanian bands,
And those who plough the rich Sutulian lands;
Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
And the proud Labicans with painted shields.
And those who near Numician streams reside,
And those whom Tiber'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 unskilled,
She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
Mixed with the first, the fierce virago fought,
Sustained the toils of arms, the danger sought;
Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain;
She swept the seas, and as she skimmed along,
Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.
Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,
Where'er she passes fix their wondering 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 crowned,
And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
She shakes her myrtle javelin, and behind
Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.
The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible preparations. Turnus sends to Diomedes. Æneas 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 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,
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;
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 tempests 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
Strike on the polished brass their trembling light,
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.
Was laid in Tiber's banks, oppressed with grief,
And found in silent slumber late relief.
Then through the shadows of the poplar wood
Arose the father of the Roman flood.
An azure robe was o'er his body spread,
A wreath of shady reeds adorned his head.
Thus manifest to sight the god appeared,
And with these pleasing words his sorrow cheered :
"Undoubted offspring of ethereal race,
O long expected in this promised place,
Who through the foes hast borne thy banished gods,
Restored them to their hearths and old abodes,
This is thy happy home-the clime where Fate
Ordains thee to restore the Trojan state!
Fear not, the war shall end in lasting peace,
And all the rage of haughty Juno cease.
"And that this nightly vision may not seem The effect of fancy, or an idle dream,
A sow beneath an oak shall lie along,
All white herself, and white her thirty young.
When thirty rolling years have run their race,
Thy son, Ascanius, on this empty space
Shall build a royal town of lasting fame,
Which from this omen shall receive the name.
Time shall approve the truth: for what remains,
And how with sure success to crown thy pains,
With patience next attend. A banished band,
Driven with Evander from the Arcadian land,
Have planted here, and placed on high their walls;
Their town the founder Palanteum calls,
Derived from Pallas his great grandsire's name;
But the fierce Latians old possession claim,
With war infesting the new colony;
These make thy friends, and on their aid rely.
To thy free passage I submit my streams :
Wake son of Venus from thy pleasing dreams;
And when the setting stars are lost in day,
To Juno's power thy just devotion pay.
With sacrifice the wrathful Queen appease,
Her pride at length shall fall, her fury cease :
When thou returnest victorious from the war,
Perform thy vows to me with grateful care.
The god am I whose yellow water flows
Around these fields, and fattens as it goes;
Tiber my name: among the rolling floods,
Renowned on earth, esteemed among the gods.
This is my certain seat in times to come
My waves shall wash the walls of mighty Rome,
He said, and plunged below; while yet he spoke,
His dream Æneas and his sleep forsook.
He rose, and looking up, beheld the skies
With purple blushing, and the day arise.
Then water in his hollow palm he took
From Tiber's flood, and thus the powers bespoke:
"Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are fed,
And father Tiber in thy sacred bed,
Receive Æneas, and from danger keep;
Whatever fount, whatever holy deep,
Conceals thy watery stores, where'er they rise,
And bubbling from below salute the skies :
Thou king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn
Suffices fatness to the fruitful corn;
For this thy kind compassion of our woes,
Shalt share my morning song and evening vows.
But, oh, be present to thy people's aid,
And firm the gracious promise thou hast made."
Thus having said, two galleys from his stores
With care he chooses, mans, and fits with oars.
Now on the shore the fatal swine is found;
Wondrous to tell, she lay along the ground;
Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung:
She white herself, and white her thirty young;
Æneas takes the mother and her brood,
And all on Juno's altar are bestowed.
The following night and the succeeding day,
Propitious Tiber smoothed his watery way;
He rolled his river back, and poised he stood-
A gentle swelling and a peaceful flood.
The Trojans mount their ships, they put from shore,
Borne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar;
Shouts from the land give omen to their course,
And the pitched vessels glide with easy force.
The woods and waters wonder at the gleam
Of shields and painted ships that stem the stream.
One summer's night and one whole day they pass
Betwixt the greenwood shades, and cut the liquid glass.
The fiery sun had finished half his race,
Looked back and doubted in the middle space.
When they from far beheld the rising towers,
The tops of sheds and shepherds lowly bowers;
Thin as they stood, which, then of homely clay,
Now rise in marble from the Roman sway:
These cots (Evander's kingdom, mean and poor)
The Trojan saw, and turned his ships to shore.
'Twas on a solemn day; the Arcadian states,
The king and prince without the city gates,
Then paid their offerings in a sacred grove
To Hercules, the warrior son of Jove.
Thick clouds of rolling smoke involve the skies,
And fat of entrails on his altar fries.
But when they saw the ships that stemmed the flood, And glittered through the covert of the wood,
They rose with fear and left the unfinished feast,
Till dauntless Pallas reassured the rest
To pay the rites. Himself without delay
A javelin seized, and singly took his way;
Then gained a rising ground, and called from far :
"Resolve me, strangers, whence and what you are;
Your business 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 Phrygians' arms you see,
Expelled from Troy, provoked in Italy
By Latian foes, with war unjustly made,
At first affianced and at last betrayed.
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,
Embraced the stranger prince, and joined his hand.
Conducted to the grove, Æneas broke
The silence first, and thus the king bespoke :
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