I. EARLY ROME. Hoc, quodcumque vides, hospes, qua maxima Roma est. STRANGER, that place-whate'er you see-where stands Im perial Rome, Was hill and grass before Aeneas left his Phrygian home; And where to Phoebus, god of fleets, towers sacred Palatine, Along the mountain-pastures lay Evander's exiled kine. To the gods of clay they formed, these golden temples grew арасе; Then shrines-the work of artless hands-were reckoned no disgrace. From the bare rock was wont to thunder forth Tarpeian Jove, And Tiber greeted on his way our oxen in the grove. Up yonder steps, where Remus' humble cottage stands on high, One hearth was all the empire of the Twins in days gone by. Yon lofty senate-house, a-gleam with peers in purple braid, Once held our rustic fathers all in shaggy skins arrayed. Gathered then the old Quirites, warned by neatherd's bugle harsh; Ofttimes there the chosen "Hundred" held their council in the marsh. Above the vaulted theatre no bellying canvas hung: No saffron perfume o'er the stage its pleasant odour flung. None cared to seek for foreign gods, what time, with souls intent, The people o'er their native rites in fear and trembling bent; But yearly they with kindled hay showed Pales honour due, Even as with horse's blood we now her lustral rites renew. Poor Vesta then rejoiced in asses crowned with wheaten bread, And meagre offerings to her shrine by starveling steers were led. With fatted pigs the small cross-roads they cleansed, and simple swains Offered the entrails of a lamb to the Pan-pipe's rustic strains. The skin-clad yeoman swung his bristly thongs, and thus began The rights of lewd Lupercus of the ancient Fabian clan. The soldier rude ne'er went to war in gleaming armour drest: A charred stake was all he had to shield his naked breast. First of his camps the hooded Lycmo planted on the wold: The greater part of Tatius' reign was spent amid the fold. Hence the Titii sprung, the Ramnes bold, and Luceres, sons of toil; Hence our founder drave his four white steeds in triumph o'er the soil. Bovillae, now a suburb, then was far from Rome, I trow,* Gabii then a mighty city, though a roofless ruin now. Naught ancestral has the Roman nursling left him save the name, Yet feels he not ashamed to boast the wolf his foster-dame. * See Note on this passage in the Appendix. 'Twas better, Troy, your banished gods ye sent to Latium's shore ; Lo! with what omens hitherward the Dardan vessel bore! Even then the augury was fair, that many a wily foe Bursting from forth the wooden horse could never work her woe, When to the son's neck clung the sire all trembling, and the flame Those filial shoulders feared to scorch, though, mantling round, it came. Then followed valiant Decius, followed Brutus stern and true, And Venus' self her Caesar's arms bore o'er the ocean blue The arms that soon with victory should wreathe renascent Troy : A happy land received thy gods, Iulus, favoured boy! If the trembling Sibyl's tripod on Avernus did divine The fields should be for Remus cleansed on holy Aventine: Or if the Trojan maiden's strain, late ratified in sooth, Thundered forth to aged Priam, bore the sacred stamp of truth: "List thee, thou shalt fall, O Troy !-in Rome, O Troy! thou❜lt rearise; How many a weary woe by sea and land before thee lies! Turn the horse, O fell your conquest! Greeks, the Ilian land shall live; Arms to these crumbling ashes yet great Jupiter shall give." O she-wolf sent of Mars, best nurse of all our fortunes thou, How vast the walls that from thy milk have grown around us now! Those walls I fain in this my strain would sing with words of love: O woe is me the melody should all so lowly prove! Yet ne'er the less each rill of song from humble breast of mine That e'er shall flow, my lovèd land, my country, shall be thine! Let Ennius wreathe around his rhymes a chaplet rudely wrought, O Bacchus! give to me the leaves from thine own ivy sought, That Umbria glory in my strains-proud Umbria, the home Of him who'll bear the name of the Callimachus of Rome. Let all who view those lofty towers, high-climbing o'er the valleys, Measure them by the bard and say: "There genius filled his chalice." Give ear, O Rome! for thee I sing for thee my strains arise; Ye citizens, give omens fair! Heaven crown mine enterprise ! I sing of sacred rites and days and ancient names of places; On to the goal, my gallant steed, though difficult the race is! "Rash, wayward youth! ah, whither art thou led? * At certis lacrimis cantas: aversus Apollo.-(Munro.) |