BOOK I

VIRGIL’S ÆNEID

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THE

ÆNEID OF VIRGIL

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE

BY

JOHN CONINGTON, M.A.

LATE CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

EDGAR S. SHUMWAY, PH.D.

EDITOR “LATINE”

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1917

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1910,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910.

Reprinted June, 1914; September, 1917.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

The Æneid ix

Virgil’s Life x

Influence of the Æneid xiii

The Epic Itself xvii

The Story xix

Sources xxi

The Translation xxi

Chronological Table xxv

Verse Translations Recommended xxvi

Books for Reference xxvii

Subjects for Investigation xxvii

THE ÆNEID

Book I. 1

II. 26

III. 51

IV. 74

V. 96

VI. 122

VII. 150

VIII. 176

IX. 198

X. 222

XI. 250

XII. 277

NOTES 305

INDEX TO NOTES 345

INTRODUCTION

THE ÆNEID

When Rome, torn and bleeding from a century of civil wars, turned to that

wise judge of men, the second Cæsar, and acquiesced as, through carefully

selected ministers, he gathered the reins of power into velvet-clad

fingers of steel, she did wisely. Better one-man power than anarchy! It

became the part of true patriotism for the citizen and of statesmanship

for the politician to bring to the aid of the First Man of the state

all the motives that could harmonize the chaotic elements, and start

Republican Rome on the path of a new unity—the unity of the Empire.

For already “far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as

it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beating horses’ hoofs

and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were nearing, _like

footsteps heard on wool_;[A] there was a sound of multitudes and millions

of barbarians, all the North, mustering and marshalling her peoples.” In

his great task Augustus, with the aid of Mæcenas, very cleverly drew to

his help writers whose work has since charmed the world. We can almost

pardon fate for destroying the Republic—it gave us Virgil and Horace.

Pleasant indeed had it been for Virgil to sing in emulation of his great

teacher Lucretius! “As for me,” he says, “first of all I would pray that

the charming Muses, whose minister I am, for the great love that has

smitten me, would receive me graciously, and teach me the courses of the

stars in heaven, the various eclipses of the sun and the earth, what is

the force by which the deep seas swell to the bursting of their barriers

and settle down again on themselves—why the winter suns make such

haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause which makes the

nights move slowly.” Pleasant, too, to spend his “chosen coin of fancy

flashing out from many a golden phrase” in picturing “the liberty of

broad domains, grottos and natural lakes, cool Tempe-like valleys, lawns

and dens where wild beasts hide, a youth strong to labor and inured to

scanty fare.” “Let me delight in the country and the streams that freshen

the valleys—let me love river and woodland with an unambitious love.”

“Then, too, there are the husbandman’s sweet children ever hanging on his

lips—his virtuous household keeps the tradition of purity.” Ah, yes, to

Virgil most attractive was the simple life of the lover of nature, and

charmingly did he portray it in his _Eclogues_ and _Georgics_!

But Augustus, recognizing the genius of Virgil, and realizing the supreme

need of a reinvigorated patriotism, urgently demanded an epic that should

portray Rome’s beginnings and her significance to the world. Reluctantly

then Virgil took up this task. Even at his death he considered it

unfulfilled. Indeed it was his wish that the manuscript be destroyed.

Almost immediately the _Æneid_ became the object of the closest study,

and ever since it has evoked the deepest admiration. Perhaps no other

secular writing has so profoundly affected literature.

VIRGIL’S LIFE

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), born in the rural district near Mantua,

a farmer’s son, was given by his loving father a careful education. Of

his father Virgil says, “those whom I have ever loved and above all my

father.” The regard of his hero Æneas for his father Anchises not merely

illustrates the early Roman filial affection—it suggests Virgil’s

relation to his own parent. In north Italy Virgil studied at Mantua,

Cremona, and Milan, and at seventeen took up his wider studies at Rome

itself in the year 53 B.C. Catullus had died the year before, Lucretius

was dead two years. At Rome Virgil had the best masters in Greek,

rhetoric, and in philosophy, a study in which he especially delighted.

In forming his own poetic style Virgil was profoundly influenced by

Lucretius, whose great poem _On Nature_ treated of the wondrous physical

universe, and by the subtly sweet young Catullus,

“Tenderest of Roman poets.”

—TENNYSON.

In such studies Virgil spent ten years. But in 41 B.C. he appears again

in north Italy and this time in storm and stress. In the year of Philippi

the triumvirs, settling their victorious legions, confiscated lands about

Cremona, and Virgil, attempting to resist dispossession, came near to

losing his life. Through fellow-students of the Roman days he secured an

introduction to Octavius and was compensated—either recovering his own

farm, or receiving in lieu of it an estate in Campania.

Virgil relates his experience in two of his ten _Eclogues_ which were

published in their present form in 38 B.C. These charming poems were

especially loved by Milton and Wordsworth. Macaulay indeed considered

them the best of Virgil’s works. At Rome they met immediate success with

the people and with Octavius and his wise minister Mæcenas, Horace’s

patron. In them Virgil tenderly sings love of friends, home, and country.

Then Virgil spent seven years on the four books of the _Georgics_,

publishing them in 29 B.C., two years after Actium. The _Georgics_

Merivale calls “the glorification of labor.” In them Virgil hymns the

farmer’s life in beautiful Italy.

“Hail to thee, land of Saturn, mighty mother of noble fruits and noble

men! For thee I essay the theme of the glory and the skill of olden

days.”

Virgil was now acknowledged the greatest poet of Italy. In the year 26

B.C., one year after the title Augustus had been conferred on Octavius,

we find the emperor writing Virgil the most urgent letters begging the

poet to send him, then in Spain, some portion of the projected _Æneid_.

It was, however, considerably later when Virgil read to Augustus the

second, fourth, and sixth books, for the young Marcellus, the emperor’s

nephew, died in 23 B.C., and we are told that Octavia, his mother,

fainted on hearing the poet read the immortal lines about her son in the

sixth book:—

“Child of a nation’s sorrow! Were there hope of thy breaking the tyranny

of fate, thou shalt be Marcellus. Bring me handfuls of lilies, that I

may strew the grave with their dazzling hues, and crown, if only with

these gifts, my young descendant’s shade, and perform the vain service of

sorrow.”

Virgil,

“who would write ten lines, they say,

At dawn, and lavish all the golden day

To make them wealthier in his readers’ eyes,”

had already spent some ten years on the _Æneid_, when in 19 B.C. he

decided to devote three years to its revision and improvement amid the

“famous cities” and scenes of Greece and Asia. It is in anticipation of

this voyage that his friend Horace prays the winds to

“Speed thee, O ship, as I pray thee to render

Virgil, a debt duly lent to thy charge,

Whole and intact on the Attican borders

Faithfully guarding the half of my soul.”

Augustus, however, met him at Athens and persuaded him to accompany his

own return. But Virgil was never again to see Rome. He contracted a fever

in Greece. It grew worse on the homeward trip; and he died, a few days

after landing, in Brundisium, having reached the age of fifty-one. His

tomb looks down upon the bay of Naples,

“That delicious Bay

Parthenope’s Domain—Virgilian haunt;

Illustrated with never dying verse

And by the Poet’s laurel-shaded tomb,

Age after age to pilgrims from all lands

Endeared.”

—WORDSWORTH.

INFLUENCE OF THE ÆNEID

As to the success of the _Æneid_, it was immediate with poets and people.

Two years after Virgil’s death Horace writes in his _Secular Hymn_:—

“If Rome be all thy work, if Trojan bands

Upon the Etruscan shore have won renown,

That chosen remnant, who at thy command

Forsook their hearths, and homes, and native town;

If all unscathed through Ilion’s flames they sped

By sage Æneas led,

And o’er the ocean waves in safety fled,

Destined from him, though of his home bereft,

A nobler dower to take, than all that they had left.”

—Translated by MARTIN.

Some of the scholars, indeed, criticised it as having an undue

simplicity, as coining new words and using old words, with new meanings,

as borrowing too freely from Homer, as not written in chronological

order, as containing anachronisms, etc. But within ten years it was as

familiarly quoted by writers as we quote Shakespeare. It became the chief

text-book in the Roman schools of grammar and rhetoric. The great writers

of later days, like Pliny and Tacitus, show the profound influence of his

style, which would seem to have gripped them as Goethe tells us Luther’s

translation of the Scriptures affected his style, and as the King James

version has left its indelible traces on English literature.

When the race-mind tired of problems of government and law, and turned

strongly to the problems of religion,—degenerating easily, to be sure,

to superstition,—it was evidence of Virgil’s grip on humanity that the

poet of poets became the wizard of wizards. Even under the Antonines, the

_Sors Vergiliana_ (Virgilian prophecy) was practised. The _Æneid_ was

opened at random, and the first verse that struck the eye was considered

a prophecy of good or bad portent. “The mediæval world looked upon him

as a poet of prophetic insight who contained within himself all the

potentialities of wisdom. He was called the Poet, as if no other existed;

the _Roman_, as if the ideal of the commonwealth were embodied in him;

the _perfect in style_, with whom no other writer could be compared; the

_Philosopher_, who grasped the ideas of all things; the _Wise One_, whose

comprehension seemed to other mortals unlimited. His writings became the

Bible of a race. The mysteries of Roman priestcraft, the processes of

divination, the science of the stars, were all found in his works.”

True indeed are the words of Professor MacMechan: “Beginning the _Æneid_

is like setting out upon a broad and beaten highway along which countless

feet have passed in the course of nineteen centuries. It is a spiritual

highway, winding through every age and every clime;” and these of

Professor Woodberry: “The _Æneid_ shows that characteristic of greatness

in literature which lies in its being a watershed of time; it looks

back to antiquity in all that clothes it with the past of imagination,

character and event, and forward to Christian times in all that clothes

it with emotion, sentiment, and finality to the heart.”

As we approach modern literature, the great Italian Dante consciously

takes Virgil as his “master and author.” “O glory and light of other

poets! May the long zeal avail me, and the great love, that made me

search thy volume. Thou art my master and my author.” On English

literature the influence of the _Æneid_ has been so potent that our space

will hardly suffice to convey the barest hint of its direct and indirect

lines. Celtic story developed from it a voyage of Brutus who founds a

new Troy, or London. Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century sets

forth this tale in his history. It was believed down to the seventeenth

century and is reported by Milton. Elizabethan literature has frequent

references to it. Chaucer in his _House of Fame_ outlines the _Æneid_,

emphasizing the Dido episode, which interested also Nash, Marlowe, and

Shakespeare. Spenser teems with allusions and indeed translations, so—

“Anchyses sonne, begott of Venus fayre,”

Said he, “out of the flames for safegard fled

And with a remnant did to sea repayre;

Where he, through fatall errour, long was led

Full many yeares, and weetlesse wandered

From shore to shore emongst the Lybick sandes

Ere rest he fownd.”

—_F. Q._, III., ix., 41.

and—

“Like a great water-flood, that, tombling low

From the high mountaines, threates to overflow

With suddein fury all the fertile playne,

And the sad husbandmans long hope doth throw

Adown the streame, and all his vowes make vayne,

Nor bounds nor banks his headlong ruine may sustayne.”

—_F. Q._, II., xi., 18; cf. _Æn._ II., 304 ff.

Bacon calls Virgil “the chastest poet and royalest that to the memory

of man is known.” “Milton,” writes Dryden, “has acknowledged to me that

Spenser was his original.” But beside this indirect influence, and that

through the Italian school, Virgil’s direct influence on Milton is

attested by many an allusion. Dryden, Cowper, with his “sweet Maro’s

matchless strain,” Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, with his “sweet, tender

Virgil,” freely acknowledge the debt they owe our poet. Dryden and Morris

translated the _Æneid_ into verse.

Tennyson, “the most Virgilian of modern poets,” gives the following

tribute, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth

centenary of Virgil’s death:—

“Roman Virgil, thou that singest Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire,

Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre,

Landscape lover, lord of language more than he that sang the Works and

Days,

All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase,

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse

and herd,

All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word,

Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers,

Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherds bound with flowers,

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be,

Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea,

Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind,

Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind,

Light among the vanished ages, star that gildest yet this phantom shore,

Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no

more,

Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar’s dome—

Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome—

Now the Rome of slaves hath perished, and the Rome of freemen holds her

place,

I, from out the Northern Island, sundered once from all the human race,

I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began,

Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.”

It is a lover of Horace (and who is not a lover of Horace?), the

brilliant Andrew Lang, who points out (in his _Letters to Dead Authors_)

a vital difference that has made Virgil’s the higher influence: “Virgil

might wander forth bearing the golden branch ‘the Sibyl doth to singing

man allow,’ and might visit, as one not wholly without hope, the dim

dwellings of the dead and the unborn. To him was it permitted to see and

sing ‘mothers and men, and the bodies outworn of mighty heroes, boys and

unwedded maids, and young men borne to the funeral fire before their

parents’ eyes.’ The endless caravan swept past him—‘many as fluttering

leaves that drop and fall in autumn woods when the first frost begins;

many as birds that flock landward from the great sea when now the chill

year drives them o’er the deep and leads them to sunnier lands.’ Such

things was it given to the sacred poet to behold, and the happy seats and

sweet pleasances of fortunate souls, where the larger light clothes all

the plains and dips them in a rosier gleam, plains with their own new sun

and stars before unknown. Ah, not _frustra pius_ was Virgil, as you say,

Horace, in your melancholy song. In him, we fancy, there was a happier

mood than your melancholy patience.”

THE EPIC ITSELF

The purpose of the epic is to indicate the divinely ordained origin and

history of Rome as a conquering, civilizing, and organizing government,

destined to replace both anarchy and tyrannical despotism by liberty

under law. As the real world-historic reason for Rome’s existence is so

commonly overlooked, let us recall Mommsen’s words in the introduction

to his _Provinces of the Roman Empire_: “It fostered the peace and

prosperity of the many nations united under its sway longer and more

completely than any other leading power has ever succeeded in doing....

If an angel of the Lord were to strike the balance whether the domain

ruled by Severus Antoninus was governed with the greater intelligence

and the greater humanity at that time or in the present day, whether

civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time

advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would

prove in favor of the present.” Virgil states the function of Rome

clearly in the famous passage of the sixth book wherein Greek and Roman

are compared:—

“Forget not, O Roman, thy fate—to rule in thy might o’er the nations:

This is to be thine art—peace to the world to give.”

So the hero Æneas, himself of divine birth, is preserved by divine

intervention when Troy falls, and mid dire perils for seven years’

voyagings, and all the bitter warring in Italy, “to bring the gods

unto Latium,” “to found a city,” to teach Italy religion and a virile

civilization. “Whence Rome mighty in her defences,” “a task of so great

magnitude it was to build the Roman nation.” Twice,—once in fields

Elysian from the lips of sainted Anchises, and again, portrayed on

the shield that Vulcan made for Æneas, is rehearsed the long line of

legendary and historical Roman heroes down to Augustus himself. “On

this side is Augustus Cæsar, leading the Italians to conflict, with the

senate and the people, the home-gods and their mighty brethren, standing

aloft on the stern.” “But Cæsar ... was consecrating to the gods of

Italy a votive tribute to deathless gratitude, three hundred mighty

fanes the whole city through.” “Such sights Æneas scans with wonder on

Vulcan’s shield ... as he heaves on his shoulder the fame and the fate of

grandsons yet to be” (end of eighth book). Incidentally ground is given,

in compensating fate, for Rome’s conquest of Greek lands—she is but

loyal to her Trojan ancestry!—and for the duel to the death with Semitic

Carthage—whose queen once was the stately Dido, left by King Æneas at

Jove’s command! Incidentally, too, Virgil draws from Trojan origins

governmental forms, religious rites, yes, even games.

While this great task of glorifying patriotism and harmonizing it with

loyalty to Cæsar is ever present to Virgil, he cannot lose two qualities

that make him the most modern of ancient poets—his love of nature and

his pathos. As examples—of the former, it suffices to cite the charming

harbor scene succeeding storm and wreck, in the first book; and, of the

latter, the death-scene of the immortal twain, Nisus and Euryalus (in

Book nine).

“Down falls Euryalus in death; over his beauteous limbs gushes the blood,

and his powerless neck sinks on his shoulders; as when a purple flower,

severed by the plough, pines in death, or poppies with faint necks droop

the head, when rain has chanced to weigh them down. But Nisus rushes full

on the foe ... and dying robs his foe of life. Then he flung himself on

his breathless friend, pierced through and through, and there at length

slept away in peaceful death.

“Happy pair! if this my song has ought of potency, no lapse of days shall

efface your names from the memory of time, so long as the house of Æneas

shall dwell on the Capitol’s moveless rock, and a Roman father shall be

the world’s lord.”

THE STORY

The story on which Virgil builds is, briefly, the fall of Troy, the

voyaging of Trojan refugees under Æneas, and the successful wars of Æneas

with Italian barbarians.

According to the ancient legend the Greeks had warred ten years under

Troy’s walls, because the Trojan prince, Paris, having awarded the prize

of beauty to Venus as against Juno and Minerva, and, having been promised

as reward by Venus Helen the beautiful wife of the Greek Menelaus, had

eloped with that fatal beauty to Troy, and his father King Priam had

refused to make restitution.

The story then, as related by Æneas to Queen Dido in her palace at

Carthage, takes up (in the second book of the Æneid) the downfall and

destruction of Troy, with the escape of Æneas, his father and son,

together with a band of Trojans. Then (in the third book) are depicted

their voyagings, unsuccessful attempts to found cities, and arrival in

Sicily. Here father Anchises dies. From Sicily they sail in the endeavor

to reach Latium in Italy.

It is at this point that the epic begins. So after his invocation and

introduction (in Book one), Virgil makes unrelenting Juno, through the

storm-king Æolus, let loose upon the Trojan fleet a fierce tempest, which

drives the remnant of the fleet far away to the Carthaginian coast.

Æneas, directed by his disguised mother Venus, comes to the court of Dido

by whom he is kindly received, banqueted; and at her request narrates (in

Books two and three) his harsh experiences.

Book four continues the Dido episode. The queen madly loves Æneas—this

through the influence of Venus, who else had feared Carthaginian

hostility to her dear Trojans. Juno thinks to thwart the fates and Jove’s

will that Æneas should create the Roman race; and she plans to hold Æneas

as spouse of the Carthaginian queen. Jove intervenes, sending Mercury

with explicit commands to Æneas to seek Italy. He sails, and Dido slays

herself.

In Book five they reach Sicily again, and it being the anniversary of

Anchises’ death, Æneas celebrates it with athletic contests. During these

Juno again attempts to thwart the fates, sending a messenger to incite

the Trojan women to set the fleet on fire. But this attempt is only

successful in so far as it leads Æneas to leave the weaklings under the

kindly sway of their kinsman, the Sicilian chief, Acestes. The rest sail

for Italy, losing the faithful pilot, Palinurus.

Book six details the visit Æneas, under the guidance of the Sibyl, to the

abode of the dead. There he meets again his father Anchises, who passes

in review, as souls about to be reborn into the upper world, their heroic

descendants.

So far, with the exception of Book two, which recorded the fall and

sack of Troy, a theme omitted by Homer, Virgil has recorded the Odyssey

or wanderings of his hero Æneas. Now in the succeeding six books is

given the Iliad or wars of Æneas in Italy. As he lands, King Latinus is

divinely led to promise Æneas his daughter Lavinia. But she has been

betrothed to Turnus. Under Juno’s prompting then begins this tremendous

duel between Æneas and Turnus. And here we note a curious likeness

between Milton and Virgil. As our sympathies are aroused in the _Paradise

Lost_ for Lucifer, so Turnus, “the reckless one,” looms up a figure of

heroic size, doomed by the fates to die that Rome may live.

SOURCES

As Virgil’s sources for his story and indeed for no small portion of

his language may be mentioned preeminently:— Homer’s _Odyssey_ and

_Iliad_; Euripides, “with his droppings of warm tears”; the Greek epic

poets, called the cyclic poets, as dealing with the cycle of story

revolving around Troy; the Greek freedman and teacher, Livius Andronicus,

who translated roughly the _Odyssey_; Nævius, who wrote on the First

Punic War, tracing Carthaginian hostility back to the Æneas visit; and

especially Ennius, “father of Latin literature,” who in a great epic

traced the history of Rome from Æneas down. Of Virgil’s borrowings it

were enough perhaps to say that, like our Shakespeare, he ennobled what

he borrowed, wove it into the texture of his song—stamped it Virgilian.

THE TRANSLATION

Concerning the translation itself, we should perhaps set over against

Emerson’s famous saying, “I should as soon think of swimming across

Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books

in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue,”

that other remark of a great scholar, that “the thing for the student of

language to learn is that _translation is impossible_.” Exquisitely done

as is this version by Professor Conington, noble student of Virgil as he

was, some faint notion of what is lost in the process might be gained by

comparing a prose version of, say, Longfellow’s “Evangeline” with his

hexameters themselves:—

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic—

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

At the very least, “the noblest measure ever moulded by the lips of man,”

Virgil’s “ocean-roll of rhythm,” is lost. That indeed is not revived for

us in Conington’s own poetical version, not in Dryden’s, nor in Morris’s.

Of Virgil also that is true which T. B. Aldrich, charming poet that he

was, wrote me anent his own early translations, “But who could hope to

decant the wine of Horace?”

Yet it may be not without interest to compare some verse renderings of

the initial lines:—

I (woll now) sing (if that I can,)

The armes and also the man,

That first came through his destinie,

Fugitive fro Troy the countrie

Into Itaile, with full much pine,

Unto the stronds of Lavine.

—CHAUCER, _House of Fame_.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,

And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,

Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore,

Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destined town;

His banished gods restored to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come

And the long glories of majestic Rome.

—DRYDEN.

I sing of arms, I sing of him, who from the Trojan land,

Thrust forth by Fate, to Italy and that Lavinian strand

First came: all tost about was he on earth and on the deep

By heavenly might for Juno’s wrath, that had no mind to sleep:

And plenteous war he underwent ere he his town might frame,

And set his gods in Latian earth, whence is the Latin name.

And father-folk of Alba-town, and walls of mighty Rome.

—MORRIS.

Arms and the man I sing, who first,

By Fate of Ilian realm amerced,

To fair Italia onward bore,

And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—

Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,

By violence of heaven, to sate

Fell Juno’s unrelenting hate;

Much labored too in battle-field,

Striving his city’s walls to build,

And give his gods a home:

Thence come the hardy Latin brood,

The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,

And lofty-rampired Rome.

—CONINGTON.

I sing of arms, and of the man who first

Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy

And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate,

Much was he tossed about upon the lands

And in the ocean by supernal powers,

Because of cruel Juno’s sleepless wrath.

Many things also suffered he in war,

Until he built a city, and his gods

Brought into Latium; whence the Latin race,

The Alban sires and walls of lofty Rome.

—CRANCH.

I sing of war, I sing the man who erst,

From off the shore of Troy fate-hunted, came

To the Lavinian coast in Italy,

Hard pressed on land and sea, the gods malign,

Fierce Juno’s hate unslaked. Much too in war

He bore while he a city built, and set

His gods in Latium. Thence the Latin race,

Our Alban sires, the walls of haughty Rome.

—LONG.

Arms and the man I sing who first, from Troy

Expelled by Fate’s decree, to Italy

And the Lavinian shores, a wanderer came.

Sore travail he endured by land and sea

From adverse gods, and unrelenting rage

Of haughty Juno: harassed, too, by war,

His destined city while he strove to build

And raise new altars for his exiled gods.

The Latian race, the Alban fathers hence

Their birth derived—hence Rome’s proud fabric sprung.

—RICKARDS.

(In hexameters.)

Arms and the hero I sing, who of old from the borders of Troja

Came to Italia, banished by fate to Lavinia’s destined

Sea coasts: Much was he tossed on the lands and the deep by enlisted

Might of supernals, through Juno’s remembered resentment:

Much, too, he suffered in warfare, while he was founding a city,

And into Latium bearing his gods: whence issued the Latin

Race, and the Alban fathers, and walls of imperial Roma.

—CRANE.

Sing I the arms and the man, who first from the shores of the Trojan,

Driven by Fate, into Italy came, to Lavinium’s borders

Much was he vexed by the power of the gods, on the land and the ocean,

Through the implacable wrath of the vengeful and pitiless Juno;

Much, too, he suffered in war, until he could found him a city,

And into Latium carry his gods; whence the race of the Latins,

Alba’s illustrious fathers, and Rome’s imperial bulwarks.

—HOWLAND.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

B.C.

98. Birth of Lucretius.

87. Birth of Catullus.

70. Virgil is born.

69. Birth of Mæcenas; Cicero is ædile.

66. Cicero is prætor.

65. Horace is born.

63. Birth of Octavius (afterward Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus).

Cicero’s consulship and _Orations against Catiline_.

60. First Triumvirate (Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus).

58. Cicero banished. Cæsar begins conquest of Gaul.

57. Cicero recalled from exile.

55. Virgil assumes the _toga virilis_. Death of Lucretius, Cæsar in

Britain.

54. Virgil studies in Milan. Death of Catullus. Cicero edits Lucretius’

_On Nature_, and (perhaps) Catullus’ _Odes_, and begins his essay

_On the State_.

53. Virgil goes to Rome: Horace is also taken there. Cicero is augur.

Parthians defeat Romans at Carrhæ.

52. Cicero’s _Oration for Milo_.

51. Cicero proconsul in Cilicia.

49. Civil War. Cæsar marches on Rome, bestowing Roman citizenship on

Italians north of the Po. Pompey leaves Italy.

48. Battle of Pharsalia. Assassination of Pompey.

46. Battle of Thapsus. Suicide of Cato at Utica.

45. Horace goes to Athens.

44. Cæsar assassinated: Octavius, adopted in his will, assumes his name.

Cicero’s _Philippics_.

43. Birth of Ovid. Second Triumvirate (Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus).

Assassination of Cicero. Civil war with Brutus and Cassius. Horace

a tribune in Brutus’ army.

42. Battles of Philippi. Death of Brutus and Cassius.

41. Confiscations by the triumvirs. Virgil introduced to Mæcenas and

Octavianus. Horace returns to Rome.

40. Virgil restored to his estate.

39. Horace introduced to Mæcenas by Virgil and Varius.

37. Virgil publishes _Eclogues_. Phraates king of Parthia.

36. Antony invades Parthia.

35. Horace publishes First Book of _Satires_.

33. Phraates attacks Armenia and Media.

31. Battle of Actium. Overthrow of Antony. Octavianus visits the East.

30. Horace publishes Second Book of _Satires_ and his _Epodes_.

29. Octavianus returns from the East and celebrates threefold triumph.

Temple of Janus closed in sign of peace. Virgil publishes

_Georgics_.

27. Octavianus receives the title of Augustus.

26. Augustus in Spain corresponds with Virgil.

24. Horace (probably) publishes first Three Books of _Odes_.

23. Death of Marcellus. Virgil reads portions of the _Æneid_ to Augustus.

20. Expedition of Augustus to the East. Parthians restore standards taken

at Carrhæ.

19. Virgil journeys to Greece. Returns with Augustus. Dies at Brundisium.

Augustus directs Virgil’s friend Varius and Tucca to edit the

_Æneid_.

18. Horace publishes First Book of _Epistles_.

17. The Secular Festival. Horace writes the _Secular Hymn_.

13. Horace publishes Fourth Book of _Odes_.

8. Death of Mæcenas and Horace.

VERSE TRANSLATIONS RECOMMENDED

DRYDEN; CONINGTON (Crowell, New York); WILLIAM MORRIS (Roberts Brothers,

Boston); CRANCH; LONG (Lockwood Brooks & Co., Boston); CRANE (Baker &

Taylor Co., New York); HOWLAND (D. Appleton & Co., New York), RICKARDS

(Books I.-VI., Blackwood & Sons, London); RHOADES (Longmans); BILLSON

(Edward Arnold, London).

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE

_Roman Poets of the Augustan Age_, Sellar (Oxford, Clarendon Press);

_Virgil_, Nettleship (Appletons), and in his _Lectures and Essays_

(Oxford); _Classical Essays_, F. W. H. Myers (Macmillan); _Studies

in Virgil_, Glover (Edward Arnold, London); _Country of Horace and

Virgil_, Boissier (Putnam); _Master Virgil_, Tunison (Robert Clark &

Co., Cincinnati); _Vergil in the Middle Ages_, Comparetti (Sonnenschein,

London); _Legends of Virgil_, Leland (Macmillan); _Histories of Roman

Literature_ by Teuffel (George Bell & Sons, London), Browne (Bentley,

London), Cruttwell (Scribners, N.Y.), Simcox (Harpers, N.Y.). _Æneas as a

Character Study_, Miller (Latine, Vol. IV., p. 18).

SUBJECTS FOR INVESTIGATION

(Miller, in _Latine_ for January, 1886.)

(1) Virgilian Proverbs. (2) A Word Study. (3) Fatalism in Virgil. (4)

Virgil’s Pictures of Roman Customs. (5) Pen Pictures. (6) Astronomy in

Virgil. (7) Virgil’s Debt to Homer. (8) Milton’s Debt to Virgil. (9)

Virgil’s Gods and Religious Rites. (10) Omens and Oracles. (11) Virgil’s

Influence upon Literature in General. (12) Figures in Virgil. (13)

Virgilian Herbarium. (14) Detailed Account of the Wandering of Æneas.

(15) The Geography of Virgil. (16) Virgil as a Poet of Nature. (17)

Virgil’s Life as gleaned from his Works. [(18) The Manuscript Texts of

Virgil.] (19) Virgilian Translators and Commentators. (20) Some Noted

Passages—why? (21) The Platonism of the Sixth Book. (22) Dryden’s Dictum

Discussed, (23) Dante—The Later Virgil. [(24) The Prosody of Virgil.]

(25) Dido—A Psychological Study. (28) Æneas—A Character Study. [(27)

_Testimonium Veterum de Vergilio._] (28) Virgil and Theocritus. (29)

Virgil’s Creations. (30) Epithets of Æneas. (31) The Virgilian Birds.

(32) Was Virgil Acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures? (33) Visions

and Dreams—Supernatural Means of Spirit Communication. (34) Night

Scenes in Virgil. (35) Different Names for Trojans and Greeks and their

Significance. (36) The Story of the Æneid.

VIRGIL’S ÆNEID

THE ÆNEID

BOOK I

Arms and the man I sing,[1] who at the first from Troy’s[2]

shores the exile of destiny, won his way to Italy and her

Latian[3] coast—a man much buffeted on land and on the

deep by violence from above, to sate the unforgetting wrath

of Juno[4] the cruel—much[5] scourged too in war, as he 5

struggled to build him a city, and find his gods a home in

Latium—himself the father of the Latian people, and the

chiefs of Alba’s[6] houses, and the walls of high towering

Rome.

Bring to my mind, O Muse,[7] the causes—for what 10

treason against her godhead, or what pain received, the

queen of heaven drove a man of piety so signal to turn

the wheel of so many calamities, to bear the brunt of so

many hardships! Can heavenly natures hate[8] so fiercely

and so long? 15

Of old there was a city, its people emigrants from

Tyre,[9] Carthage, over against Italy and Tiber’s mouths,

yet far removed—rich and mighty, and formed to all

roughness by war’s[10] iron trade—a spot where Juno, it

was said, loved to dwell more than in all the world beside, 20

Samos[11] holding but the second place. Here was her

armour, here her chariot—here to fix by her royal act

the empire of the nations, could Fate be brought to assent,

was even then her aim, her cherished scheme. But she

had heard that the blood of Troy was sowing the seed of a 25

race to overturn one day those Tyrian towers—from that

seed a nation, monarch of broad realms and glorious in

war, was to bring ruin on Libya[12]—such the turning of

Fate’s[13] wheel. With these fears Saturn’s[14] daughter, and

with a lively memory of that old war which at first she

had waged at Troy for her loved Argos’[15] sake—nor indeed

had the causes of that feud and the bitter pangs

they roused yet vanished from her mind—no, stored up 5

in her soul’s depths remains the judgment of Paris,[16] and

the wrong done to her slighted beauty, and the race abhorred

from the womb, and the state enjoyed by the

ravished Ganymede.[17] With this fuel added to the fire,

the Trojans, poor remnants of Danaan[18] havoc and 10

Achilles’[19] ruthless spear, she was tossing from sea to sea,

and keeping far away from Latium; and for many long

years they were wandering, with destiny still driving

them, the whole ocean round. So vast the effort it cost

to build up the Roman nation! 15

Scarce out of sight of the land of Sicily were they spreading

their sails merrily to the deep, and scattering with

their brazen prows the briny spray, when Juno, the everlasting

wound still rankling in her heart’s core, thus communed

with herself: “And am I to give up what I have 20

taken in hand, baffled, nor have power to prevent the king

of the Teucrians[20] from reaching Italy—because, forsooth,

the Fates forbid me? What! was Pallas[21] strong enough

to burn up utterly the Grecian fleet, and whelm the crews

in the sea, for the offence of a single man, the frenzy of 25

Ajax,[22] Oïleus’ son? Aye, she with her own hand launched

from the clouds Jove’s[23] winged fire, dashed the ships apart,

and turned up the sea-floor with the wind—him, gasping

out the flame which pierced his bosom, she caught in the

blast, and impaled on a rock’s[24] point—while I, who walk 30

the sky as its queen, Jove’s sister and consort both, am

battling with a single nation these many years. And are

there any found to pray to Juno’s deity after this, or lay

on her altar a suppliant’s gift?”

With such thoughts sweeping through the solitude of 35

her enkindled breast, the goddess comes to the storm-cloud’s

birthplace, the teeming womb of fierce southern

blasts, Æolia.[25] Here, in a vast cavern,[26] King Æolus[27]

is bowing to his sway struggling winds and howling tempests,

and bridling them with bond[28] and prison. They,

in their passion, are raving at the closed doors, while the

huge rock roars responsive: Æolus is sitting aloft in his

fortress, his sceptre in his hand, soothing their moods 5

and allaying their rage; were he to fail in this, why sea

and land, and the deep of heaven, would all be forced

along by their blast, and swept through the air. But

the almighty sire has buried them in caverns dark and

deep, with this fear before his eyes, and placed over them 10

giant bulk and tall mountains, and given them a king

who, by the terms of his compact, should know how to

tighten or slacken the reins at his patron’s will. To him

it was that Juno then, in these words, made her humble

request:— 15

“Æolus—for it is to thee that the sire of gods and king

of men has given it with the winds now to calm, now to

rouse the billows—there is a race which I love not now

sailing the Tyrrhene[29] sea, carrying Ilion[30] into Italy and

Ilion’s vanquished gods; do thou lash the winds to fury, 20

sink and whelm their ships, or scatter them apart, and

strew the ocean with their corpses. Twice seven nymphs

are of my train, all of surpassing beauty; of these her whose

form is fairest, Deiopea, I will unite to thee in lasting wedlock,

and consecrate her thy own, that all her days, for a 25

service so great, she may pass with thee, and make thee

father of a goodly progeny.”

Æolus returns: “Thine, great Queen, is the task to

search out on what thou mayest fix thy heart; for me to do

thy bidding[31] is but right. Thou makest this poor realm 30

mine, mine the sceptre and Jove’s smile; thou givest me a

couch at the banquets of the gods, and makest me lord

of the storm-cloud and of the tempest.”

So soon as this was said, he turned his spear, and pushed

the hollow mountain on its side; and the winds, as though 35

in column formed, rush forth[32] where they see any outlet,

and sweep over the earth in hurricane. Heavily they

fall[33] on the sea, and from its very bottom crash down the

whole expanse—one and all, east and south, and south-west,

with his storms thronging at his back, and roll huge

billows shoreward. Hark to the shrieks of the crew, and

the creaking of the cables! In an instant the clouds

snatch sky and daylight[34] from the Teucrians’ eyes—night 5

lies on the deep, black and heavy—pole thunders to

pole; heaven flashes thick with fires, and all nature

brandishes instant death in the seaman’s face. At once

Æneas’[35] limbs are unstrung and chilled[36]—he groans

aloud, and, stretching his clasped hands to the stars, 10

fetches from his breast words like these:—“O happy,

thrice[37] and again, whose lot it was, in their fathers’ sight,

under Troy’s high walls to meet death! O thou, the bravest

of the Danaan race, Tydeus’ son,[38] why was it not mine

to lay me low on Ilion’s plains, and yield this fated life to 15

thy right hand? Aye, there it is that Hector,[39] stern as

in life, lies stretched by the spear of Æacides[40]—there

lies Sarpedon’s[41] giant bulk—there it is that Simois[42]

seizes and sweeps down her channel those many shields

and helms, and bodies of the brave!” 20

Such words as he flung wildly forth, a blast roaring from

the north strikes his sail full in front and lifts the billows

to the stars.[43] Shattered are the oars; then the prow

turns and presents the ship’s side to the waves; down

crashes in a heap a craggy mountain of water. Look! 25

these are hanging on the surge’s crest[44]—to those the

yawning deep is giving a glimpse of land down among

the billows; surf and sand are raving together. Three

ships the south catches, and flings upon hidden rocks—rocks 30

which, as they stand with the waves all about them,

the Italians call Altars, an enormous ridge rising above

the sea. Three the east drives from the main on to shallows

and Syrtes,[45] a piteous sight, and dashes them on

shoals, and embanks them in mounds of sand. One in

which the Lycians were sailing, and true Orontes, a 35

mighty sea strikes from high on the stem before Æneas’

very eyes; down goes the helmsman, washed from his

post, and topples on his head, while she is thrice whirled

round by the billow in the spot where she lay, and swallowed

at once by the greedy gulf. You might see them

here and there swimming in that vast abyss—heroes’

arms, and planks, and Troy’s treasures glimmering through

the water. Already Ilioneus’ stout ship, already brave 5

Achates’, and that in which Abas sailed, and that which

carried old Aletes, are worsted by the storm; their side-jointings[46]

loosened, one and all give entrance to the

watery foe, and part failingly asunder.

Meantime the roaring riot of the ocean and the storm let 10

loose reached the sense of Neptune,[47] and the still waters

disgorged from their deep beds, troubling him grievously;

and casting a broad glance over the main he raised at

once his tranquil brow from the water’s surface. There

he sees Æneas’ fleet tossed hither and thither over the 15

whole expanse—the Trojans whelmed under the billows,

and the crashing ruin of the sky—nor failed the brother

to read Juno’s craft and hatred there. East and West

he calls before him, and bespeaks them thus:—“Are ye

then so wholly o’ermastered by the pride of your birth? 20

Have ye come to this, ye Winds, that, without sanction

from me, ye dare to confound[48] sea and land, and upheave

these mighty mountains? ye! whom I—but it were best

to calm the billows ye have troubled. Henceforth ye

shall pay me for your crimes in far other coin. Make 25

good speed with your flight, and give your king this message.

Not to him did the lot assign the empire of the sea

and the terrible trident, but to me. His sway is over those

enormous rocks, where you, Eurus,[49] dwell, and such as

you; in that court let Æolus lord it, and rule in the prison-house 30

of the winds when its doors are barred.”

He speaks, and ere his words are done soothes the swelling

waters, and routs[50] the mustered clouds, and brings

back the sun in triumph. Cymothoë and Triton[51] combine

their efforts to push off the vessels from the sharp-pointed 35

rock. The god himself upheaves them with his

own trident,[52] and levels the great quicksands, and allays

the sea, and on chariot-wheels of lightest motion glides

along the water’s top. Even as when in a great crowd tumult

is oft stirred up, and the base herd waxes wild and frantic,

and brands and stones are flying already, rage suiting

the weapon[53] to the hand—at that moment, should their

eyes fall on some man of weight, for duty done and public 5

worth, tongues are hushed and ears fixed in attention,

while his words sway the spirit and soothe the breast—so

fell all the thunders of the ocean, so soon as the great

father, with the waves before him in prospect, and the

clear sky all about him, guides his steeds at will, and as he 10

flies flings out the reins freely to his obedient car.

Spent with toil, the family of Æneas labour to gain the

shore that may be nearest, and are carried to the coasts

of Libya. There is a spot retiring deep into the land, where

an island forms a haven[54] by the barrier of its sides, which 15

break every billow from the main and send it shattered

into the deep indented hollows. On either side of the bay are

huge rocks, and two great crags rising in menace to the

sky; under their summits far and wide the water is hushed

in shelter, while a theatric background of waving woods, 20

a black forest of stiffening shade, overhangs it from the

height. Under the brow that fronts the deep is a cave

with pendent crags; within there are fresh springs and

seats in the living rock—the home of the nymphs; no

need of cable[55] here to confine the weary bark or anchor’s 25

crooked fang to grapple her to the shore. Here with seven

ships mustered from his whole fleet Æneas enters; and

with intense yearning for dry land the Trojans disembark

and take possession of the wished-for shore, and lay their

brine-drenched limbs upon the beach. And first Achates 30

from a flint struck out a spark, and received the fire as it

dropped in a cradle of leaves, and placed dry food all about

it, and spread the strong blaze among the tinder. Then

their corn, soaked and spoiled as it was, and the corn-goddess’

armoury they bring out, sick of fortune; and make 35

ready to parch the rescued grain at the fire, and crush it

with the millstone.

Æneas meanwhile clambers up a rock, and tries to get a

full view far and wide over the sea, if haply he may see

aught of Antheus, driven by the gale, and the Phrygian

biremes,[56] or Capys, or high on the stern the arms of Caicus.

Sail there is none in sight; three stags he sees at distance

straying on the shore; these the whole herd follows in the 5

rear, and grazes along the hollows in long array. At once

he took his stand, and caught up a bow and fleet arrows,

which true Achates chanced to be carrying, and lays low first

the leaders themselves, as they bear their heads aloft with

tree-like antlers, then the meaner sort, and scatters with 10

his pursuing shafts the whole rout among the leafy woods;

nor stays his hand till he stretches on earth victoriously

seven huge bodies, and makes the sum of them even with

his ships. Then he returns to the haven and gives all his

comrades their shares. The wine next, which that good 15

Acestes had stowed in casks on the Trinacrian shore, and

given them at parting with his own princely hand, he

portions out, and speaks words of comfort to their sorrowing

hearts:—

“Comrades! for comrades we are, no strangers to hardships 20

already; hearts that have felt deeper wounds! for

these too heaven will find a balm. Why, men, you have

even looked on Scylla[57] in her madness, and heard those

yells that thrill the rocks; you have even made trial of

the crags of the Cyclops.[58] Come, call your spirits back, 25

and banish these doleful fears—who knows but some

day this too will be remembered[59] with pleasure? Through

manifold chances, through these many perils of fortune,

we are making our way to Latium, where the Fates hold

out to us a quiet settlement; there Troy’s empire has 30

leave to rise again from its ashes. Bear up, and reserve

yourselves for brighter days.”

Such were the words his tongue uttered; heart-sick[60]

with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of hope

in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. They 35

gird themselves to deal with the game, their forthcoming

meal; strip the hide from the ribs, and lay bare the flesh—some

cut it into pieces, and impale it yet quivering on

spits, others set up the caldrons on the beach, and supply

them with flame. Then with food they recall their

strength, and, stretched along the turf, feast on old wine

and fat venison to their hearts’ content. Their hunger

sated by the meal, and the boards removed, they vent in 5

long talk their anxious yearning for their missing comrades—balanced

between hope and fear, whether to

think of them as alive, or as suffering the last change, and

deaf already to the voice that calls on them. But good

Æneas’ grief exceeds the rest; one moment he groans for 10

bold Orontes’ fortune, another for Amycus’, and in the

depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus;

for the gallant Gyas and the gallant Cloanthus.

And now at last their mourning had an end, when

Jupiter from the height of ether,[61] looking down on the sea 15

with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, the

shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus upon

heaven’s very summit, and fixed his downward gaze on

Libya’s realms. To him, revolving in his breast such

thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, with tears suffusing 20

her starry eyes, speaks Venus: “O thou, who by thy

everlasting laws swayest the two commonwealths of men

and gods, and awest them by thy lightning! What can

my poor Æneas have done to merit thy wrath? What

can the Trojans? yet they, after the many deaths they 25

have suffered already, still find the whole world barred[62]

against them for Italy’s sake. From them assuredly it

was that the Romans, as years rolled on—from them were

to spring those warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer’s blood revived,

who should rule sea and land with absolute sway—such 30

was thy promise: how has thy purpose, O my father,

wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was my constant

solace when Troy’s star set in grievous ruin, as I sat balancing

destiny against destiny. And now here is the same

Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has so oft discomfited 35

already. Mighty king, what end of sufferings hast thou

to give them? Antenor,[63] indeed, found means to escape

through the midst of the Achæans, to thread in safety

the windings of the Illyrian coast, and the realms of the

Liburnians, up at the gulf’s head, and to pass the springs

of Timavus, whence through nine mouths,’mid the rocks’

responsive roar, the sea comes bursting up, and deluges

the fields with its thundering billows. Yet in that spot 5

he built the city of Patavium for his Trojans to dwell in,

and gave them a place and a name among the nations, and

set up a rest for the arms[64] of Troy: now he reposes, lapped

in the calm of peace. Meantime we, of thine own blood,

to whom thy nod secures the pinnacle of heaven, our ships, 10

most monstrous, lost, as thou seest, all to sate the malice

of one cruel heart, are given up to ruin, and severed far

from the Italian shores. Is this the reward of piety[65]?

Is this to restore a king to his throne?”

Smiling on her, the planter of gods and men, with that 15

face which calms the fitful moods of the sky, touched with

a kiss his daughter’s lips, then addressed her thus: “Give

thy fears a respite, lady of Cythera[66]: thy people’s destiny

abides still unchanged for thee; thine eyes shall see the

city of thy heart, the promised walls of Lavinium[67]; 20

thine arms shall bear aloft to the stars of heaven thy hero

Æneas; nor has my purpose wrought a change in me.

Thy hero—for I will speak out, in pity for the care that

rankles yet, and awaken the secrets of Fate’s book from

the distant pages where they slumber—thy hero shall 25

wage a mighty war in Italy, crush its haughty tribes, and

set up for his warriors a polity and a city, till the third

summer shall have seen him king over Latium, and three

winters in camp shall have passed over the Rutulians’[68]

defeat. But the boy Ascanius,[69] who has now the new 30

name of Iulus—Ilus he was, while the royalty of Ilion’s

state stood firm—shall let thirty of the sun’s great courses

fulfil their monthly rounds while he is sovereign, then

transfer the empire from Lavinium’s seat, and build

Alba the Long, with power and might. Here for full three 35

hundred years the crown shall be worn by Hector’s[70] line,

till a royal priestess, teeming by the war-god, Ilia, shall

be the mother of twin sons. Then shall there be one,

proud to wear the tawny hide of the wolf that nursed him,

Romulus, who will take up the sceptre, and build a new

city, the city of Mars, and give the people his own name

of Roman. To them I assign no limit, no date of empire:

my grant to them is dominion without end. Nay, Juno, 5

thy savage foe, who now, in her blind terror, lets neither

sea, land, nor heaven rest, shall amend her counsels, and

vie with me in watching over the Romans, lords of earth,

the great nation of the gown. So it is willed. The time

shall come, as Rome’s years roll on, when the house of 10

Assaracus[71] shall bend to its yoke Phthia[72] and renowned

Mycenæ,[73] and queen it over vanquished Argos.[74] Then shall

be born the child of an illustrious line, one of thine own

Trojans, Cæsar, born to extend his empire to the ocean, his

glory to the stars,[75]—Julius, in name as in blood the heir of 15

great Iulus. Him thou shalt one day welcome in safety to

the sky, a warrior laden with Eastern spoils; to him, as to

Æneas, men shall pray and make their vows. In his days

war[76] shall cease, and savage times grow mild. Faith with

her hoary head, and Vesta,[77] Quirinus,[78] and Remus his 20

brother, shall give law to the world: grim, iron-bound,

closely welded, the gates of war shall be closed; the fiend

of Discord a prisoner within, seated on a pile of arms deadly

as himself, his hands bound behind his back with a hundred

brazen chains, shall roar ghastly from his throat of blood.” 25

So saying, he sends down from on high the son of Maia,[79]

that Carthage the new, her lands and her towers, may

open themselves to welcome in the Teucrians, lest Dido,[80]

in her ignorance of Fate, should drive them from her

borders. Down flies Mercury through the vast abyss of 30

air, with his wings for oars, and has speedily alighted on

the shore of Libya. See! he is doing his bidding already:

the Punic[81] nation is resigning the fierceness of its nature

at the god’s pleasure; above all the rest, the queen is

admitting into her bosom thoughts of peace towards the 35

Teucrians, and a heart of kindness.

But Æneas the good, revolving many things the whole

night through, soon as the gracious dawn is vouchsafed,

resolves to go out and explore this new region; to inquire

what shores be these on which the wind has driven him,

who their dwellers, for he sees it is a wilderness, men or

beasts; and bring his comrades back the news. His

fleet he hides in the wooded cove under a hollow rock, 5

with a wall of trees and stiffening shade on each side.

He moves on with Achates, his single companion, wielding

in his hands two spear shafts, with heads of broad iron.

He had reached the middle of the wood, when his way

was crossed by his mother, wearing a maiden’s mien and 10

dress, and a maiden’s armour, Spartan, or even as Harpalyce

of Thrace, tires steed after steed, and heads the swift

waters of her own Hebrus as she flies along. For she had

a shapely bow duly slung from her shoulders in true huntress

fashion, and her hair streaming in the wind, her knee 15

bare, and her flowing scarf gathered round her in a knot.

Soon as she sees them, “Ho![82] youths,” cries she, “if you

have chanced to see one of my sisters wandering in these

parts, tell me where to find her—wandering with a quiver,

and a spotted lynx hide fastened about her; or, it may 20

be, pressing on the heels of the foaming boar with her

hounds in full cry.”

Thus Venus spoke, and Venus’ son replied:—“No sight

or hearing have we had of any sister of thine, O thou—what

name shall I give thee? maiden; for thy face is not 25

of earth, nor the tone of thy voice human: some goddess[83]

surely thou art. Phœbus’[84] sister belike, or one of the

blood of the nymphs? be gracious, whoe’er thou art, and

relieve our hardship, and tell us under what sky now,

on what realms of earth we are thrown. Utter strangers 30

to the men and the place, we are wandering, as thou seest,

by the driving of the wind and of the mighty waters.

Do this, and many a victim shall fall to thee at the altar

by this hand of mine.”

Then Venus:—“Nay, I can lay claim to no such honours. 35

Tyrian maidens, like me, are wont to carry the

quiver, and tie the purple buskin high up the calf. This

that you now see is the Punic realm, the nation Tyrian

and the town Agenor’s[85]; but on the frontiers are the

Libyans, a race ill to handle in war. The queen is Dido,

who left her home in Tyre to escape from her brother.

Lengthy is her tale of wrong, lengthy the windings of its

course; but I will pass rapidly from point to point. Her 5

husband was Sychæus, wealthiest of Phœnician landowners,

and loved by his poor wife with fervid passion;

on him her father had bestowed her in her maiden bloom,

linking them together by the omens of a first bridal. But

the crown of Tyre was on the head of her brother, Pygmalion, 10

in crime monstrous beyond the rest of men.

They were two, and fury came between them. Impious

that he was, at the very altar of the palace, the love of

gold blinding his eyes, he surprises Sychæus with his

stealthy steel, and lays him low, without a thought for 15

his sister’s passion; he kept the deed long concealed,

and with many a base coinage sustained the mockery

of false hope[86] in her pining love-lorn heart. But lo! in

her sleep there came to her no less than the semblance of

her unburied spouse, lifting up a face of strange unearthly 20

pallor; the ruthless altar and his breast gored with the

steel, he laid bare the one and the other, and unveiled

from first to last the dark domestic crime. Then he urges

her to speed her flight, and quit her home for ever, and in

aid of her journey unseals a hoard of treasure long hid in 25

the earth, a mass of silver and gold which none else knew.

Dido’s soul was stirred; she began to make ready her

flight, and friends to share it. There they meet, all whose

hate of the tyrant was fell or whose fear was bitter; ships,

that chanced to lie ready in the harbour, they seize, and 30

freight with gold. Away it floats over the deep, the

greedy Pygmalion’s wealth; and who heads the enterprise?

a woman[87]! So they came to the spot where you

now see yonder those lofty walls, and the rising citadel

of Carthage the new; there they bought ground, which 35

got from the transaction the name of Byrsa,[88] as much as

they could compass round with a bull’s hide. But who

are you after all? What coast are you come from, or

whither are you holding on your journey?” That question

he answers thus, with a heavy sigh, and a voice

fetched from the bottom of his heart:—

“Fair goddess! should I begin from the first and proceed

in order, and hadst thou leisure to listen to the chronicle 5

of our sufferings, eve would first close the Olympian gates

and lay the day to sleep. For us, bound from ancient

Troy, if the name of Troy has ever chanced to pass through

a Tyrian ear, wanderers over divers seas already, we have

been driven by a storm’s wild will upon your Libyan 10

coasts. I am Æneas, styled the good, who am bearing

with me in my fleet the gods of Troy rescued from the

foe; a name blazed by rumour above the stars. I am in

quest of Italy, looking there for an ancestral home, and a

pedigree drawn from high Jove himself. With twice ten 15

ships I climbed the Phrygian main, with a goddess mother

guiding me on my way, and a chart of oracles to follow.

Scarce seven remain to me now, shattered by wind and

wave. Here am I, a stranger, nay, a beggar, wandering

over your Libyan deserts, driven from Europe and Asia 20

alike.” Venus could bear the complaint no longer, so

she thus struck into the middle of his sorrows:—

“Whoever you are, it is not, I trow, under the frown of

heavenly powers that you draw the breath of life,[89] thus to

have arrived at our Tyrian town. Only go on, and make 25

your way straight hence to the queen’s palace. For I

give you news that your comrades are returned and your

fleet brought back, wafted into shelter by shifting gales,

unless my learning of augury was vain, and the parents

who taught me cheats. Look at these twelve swans 30

exultant in victorious column, which the bird of Jove,[90]

swooping from the height of ether, was just now driving

in confusion over the wide unsheltered sky; see now how

their line stretches, some alighting on the ground, others

just looking down on those alighted. As they, thus rallied, 35

ply their whirring wings[91] in sport, spreading their train

round the sky, and uttering songs of triumph, even so

your vessels and your gallant crews are either safe in the

port, or entering the haven with sails full spread. Only

go on, and where the way leads you direct your steps.”

She said, and as she turned away, flashed on their sight

her neck’s roseate hue; her ambrosial locks breathed from

her head a heavenly fragrance; her robe streamed down 5

to her very feet; and in her walk[92] was revealed the true

goddess. Soon as he knew his mother, he pursued her

flying steps with words like these:—“Why wilt thou be

cruel like the rest, mocking thy son these many times

with feigned semblances? Why is it not mine to grasp 10

thy hand in my hand, and hear and return the true language

of the heart?” Such are his upbraidings, while he

yet bends his way to the town. But Venus fenced them

round with a dim cloud as they moved, and wrapped them

as a goddess only can in a spreading mantle of mist, that 15

none might be able to see them, none to touch them, or

put hindrances in their path, or ask the reason of their coming.

She takes her way aloft to Paphos,[93] glad to revisit

the abode she loves, where she has a temple and a hundred

altars, smoking with Sabæan[94] incense, and fragrant with 20

garlands ever new.

They, meanwhile, have pushed on their way, where the

path guides them, and already they are climbing the hill

which hangs heavily over the city, and looks from above

on the towers that rise to meet it. Æneas marvels at the 25

mass of building, once a mere village of huts; marvels at

the gates, and the civic din, and the paved ways. The

Tyrians are alive and on fire—intent, some on carrying

the walls aloft and upheaving the citadel, and rolling

stones from underneath by force of hand; some on making 30

choice of a site for a dwelling, and enclosing it with a

trench. They are ordaining the law and its guardians, and

the senate’s sacred majesty. Here are some digging out

havens; there are others laying deep the foundation of a

theatre, and hewing from the rocks enormous columns, 35

the lofty ornaments of a stage that is to be. Such are the

toils that keep the commonwealth of bees[95] at work

in the sun among the flowery meads when summer is

new, what time they lead out the nation’s hope, the young

now grown, or mass together honey, clear and flowing, and

strain the cells to bursting with its nectarous sweets, or

relieve those who are coming in of their burdens, or collect

a troop and expel from their stalls the drones, that lazy, 5

thriftless herd. The work is all afire, and a scent of thyme

breathes from the fragrant honey. “O happy they, whose

city is rising already!” cries Æneas, as he looks upward

to roof and dome. In he goes, close fenced by his cloud,

miraculous to tell, threads his way through the midst, 10

and mingles with the citizens, unperceived of all.

A grove there was in the heart of the city, most plenteous

of shade—the spot where first, fresh from the buffeting of

wave and wind, the Punic race dug up the token which

queenly Juno had bidden them expect, the head of a fiery 15

steed—for even thus, said she, the nation should be renowned

in war and rich in sustenance for a life of centuries.

Here Dido, Sidon’s[96] daughter, was building a vast temple

to Juno, rich in offerings and in the goddess’s especial

presence; of brass was the threshold with its rising steps, 20

clamped with brass the door-posts, the hinge creaked on

a door of brass. In this grove it was that first a new object

appeared, as before, to soothe away fear: here it was that

Æneas first dared to hope that all was safe, and to place a

better trust in his shattered fortunes. For while his eye 25

ranges over each part under the temple’s massy roof, as

he waits there for the queen—while he is marvelling at

the city’s prosperous star, the various artist-hands vying

with each other, their tasks and the toil they cost, he

beholds, scene after scene, the battles of Ilion, and the 30

war that Fame had already blazed the whole world over—Atreus’[o]

sons, and Priam, and the enemy of both,

Achilles. He stopped short, and breaking into tears,

“What place is there left?” he cries, “Achates, what

clime on earth that is not full of our sad story? See there 35

Priam. Here, too, worth finds its due reward; here, too,

there are tears[97] for human fortune, and hearts that are

touched by mortality. Be free from fear: this renown

of ours will bring you some measure of safety.” So speaking,

he feeds his soul on the empty portraiture, with many

a sigh, and lets copious rivers run down his cheeks. For

he still saw how, as they battled round Pergamus,[98] here

the Greeks were flying, the Trojan youth in hot pursuit; 5

here the Phrygians, at their heels in his car Achilles, with

that dreadful crest. Not far from this he recognizes with

tears the snowy canvas of Rhesus’ tent, which, all surprised

in its first sleep, Tydeus’ son was devastating with wide

carnage, himself bathed in blood—see! he drives off 10

the fiery steeds to his own camp, ere they have had time

to taste the pastures of Troy or drink of Xanthus.[99] There

in another part is Troilus[100] in flight, his arms fallen from

him—unhappy boy, confronted with Achilles in unequal

combat—hurried away by his horses, and hanging half 15

out of the empty car, with his head thrown back, but the

reins still in his hand; his neck and his hair are being

trailed along the ground, and his inverted spear is drawing

lines in the dust. Meanwhile to the temple of Pallas,[101]

not their friend, were moving the Trojan dames with locks 20

dishevelled, carrying the sacred robe, in suppliant guise

of mourning, their breasts bruised with their hands—the

goddess was keeping her eyes riveted on the ground,

with her face turned away. Thrice had Achilles dragged

Hector round the walls of Ilion, and was now selling for 25

gold his body, thus robbed of breath. Then, indeed,

heavy was the groan that he gave from the bottom of

his heart, when he saw the spoils, the car, the very body

of his friend, and Priam, stretching out those helpless

hands. Himself, too, he recognizes in the forefront of 30

the Achæan ranks, and the squadrons of the East, and the

arms of the swarthy Memnon.[102] There, leading the columns

of her Amazons, with their moony shields, is Penthesilea[103]

in her martial frenzy, blazing out, the centre of thousands,

as she loops up her protruded breast with a girdle of gold, 35

the warrior queen, and nerves herself to the shock of combat,

a maiden against men.

While these things are meeting the wondering eyes of

Æneas the Dardan—while he is standing bewildered,

and continues riveted in one set gaze—the queen has

moved towards the temple, Dido, of loveliest presence,

with a vast train of youths thronging round her. Like

as on Eurotas’ banks, or along the ridges of Cynthus, 5

Diana[104] is footing the dance, while, attending her, a thousand

mountain nymphs are massing themselves on either

side; she, her quiver on her shoulder, as she steps, towers

over the whole goddess sisterhood, while Latona’s[105] bosom

thrills silently with delight; such was Dido—such she 10

bore herself triumphant through the midst, to speed the

work which had empire for its prospect. Then, at the doors

of the goddess, under the midmost vaulting of the temple,

with a fence of arms round her, supported high on a throne,

she took her seat. There she was giving laws and judgments 15

to her citizens, and equalizing the burden of their

tasks by fair partition, or draughting it by lot, when suddenly

Æneas sees coming among the great crowd Antheus

and Sergestus, and brave Cloanthus, and other of the

Teucrians, whom the black storm had scattered over the 20

deep, and carried far away to other coasts. Astounded

was he, overwhelmed, too, was Achates, all for joy and

fear: eagerly were they burning to join hands with theirs,

but the unexplained mystery confounds their minds.

They carry on the concealment, and look out from the 25

hollow cloud that wraps them, to learn what fortune their

mates have had, on what shore they are leaving their fleet,

what is their errand here—for they were on their way,

a deputation from all the crews, suing for grace, and were

making for the temple with loud cries. 30

After they had gained an entrance, and had obtained

leave to speak in the presence, Ilioneus, the eldest, thus

began, calm of soul:—

“Gracious queen, to whom Jupiter has given to found a

new city, and to restrain by force of law the pride of savage 35

nations, we, hapless Trojans, driven by the winds over

every sea, make our prayer to you—keep off from our

ships the horrors of fire, have pity on a pious race, and

vouchsafe a nearer view to our affairs. We are not come

to carry the havoc of the sword into the homes of Libya—to

snatch booty and hurry it to the shore; such violence

is not in our nature; such insolence were not for

the vanquished. There is a place—the Greeks call it 5

Hesperia—a land old in story, strong in arms and in

the fruitfulness of its soil; the Œnotrians were its settlers;

now report says that later generations have called the

nation Italian, from the name of their leader. Thither

were we voyaging, when, rising with a sudden swell, Orion,[106] 10

lord of the storm, carried us into hidden shoals, and far

away by the stress of reckless gales over the water, the

surge mastering us, and over pathless rocks scattered us

here and there: a small remnant, we drifted hither on to

your shores. What race of men have we here? What 15

country is so barbarous as to sanction a native usage like

this? Even the hospitality of the sand is forbidden us—they

draw the sword, and will not let us set foot on the

land’s edge. If you defy the race of men, and the weapons

that mortals wield, yet look to have to do with gods, who 20

watch over the right and the wrong. Æneas was our king,

than whom never man breathed more just, more eminent

in piety, or in war and martial prowess. If the Fates are

keeping our hero alive—if he is feeding on this upper

air, and not yet lying down in death’s cruel shade—all 25

our fears are over, nor need you be sorry to have made

the first advance in the contest of kindly courtesy. The

realm of Sicily, too, has cities for us, and store of arms,

and a hero-king of Trojan blood, Acestes.[o] Give us leave

but to lay up on shore our storm-beaten fleet, to fashion 30

timber in your forests, and strip boughs for our oars, that,

if we are allowed to sail for Italy, our comrades and king

restored to us, we may make our joyful way to Italy and

to Latium; or, if our safety is swallowed up, and thou,

best father of the Teucrians, art the prey of the Libyan 35

deep, and a nation’s hope lives no longer in Iulus, then, at

least, we may make for Sicania’s straits, and the houses

standing to welcome us, whence we came hither, and may

find a king in Acestes.” Such was the speech of Ilioneus;

an accordant clamour burst at once from all the sons of

Dardanus.

Then briefly Dido, with downcast look, makes reply:—“Teucrians!

unburden your hearts of fear, lay your anxieties 5

aside. It is the stress of danger and the infancy of

my kingdom that make me put this policy in motion and

protect my frontiers with a guard all about. The men

of Æneas and the city of Troy—who can be ignorant of

them?—the deeds and the doers, and all the blaze of that 10

mighty war? Not so blunt are the wits we Punic folk

carry with us, not so wholly does the sun turn his back

on our Tyrian town when he harnesses his steeds.

Whether you make your choice of Hesperia the great, and

the old realm of Saturn, or of the borders of Eryx and their 15

king Acestes, I will send you on your way with an escort

to protect you, and will supply you with stores. Or would

you like to settle along with me in my kingdom here?

Look at the city I am building, it is yours, lay up your

ships, Trojan and Tyrian shall be dealt with by me without 20

distinction. Would to heaven your king were here too,

driven by the gale that drove you hither—Æneas himself!

For myself, I will send trusty messengers along the coast,

with orders to traverse the furthest parts of Libya, in case

he should be shipwrecked and wandering anywhere in 25

forest or town.”

Excited by her words, brave Achates and father Æneas,

too, were burning long ere this to break out of their cloud.

Achates first accosts Æneas:—“Goddess-born, what purpose

now is foremost in your mind? All you see is safe, 30

our fleet and our mates are restored to us. One is missing,

whom our own eyes saw in the midst of the surge swallowed

up, all the rest is even as your mother told us.”

Scarce had he spoken when the cloud that enveloped

them suddenly parts asunder and clears into the open sky. 35

Out stood Æneas, and shone[107] again in the bright sunshine,

his face and his bust the image of a god, for his great

mother had shed graceful tresses over her son’s brow,

and the glowing flush of youth, and had breathed the

breath of beauty and gladness into his eyes, loveliness such

as the artist’s touch imparts to ivory, or when silver or

Parian marble is enchased[108] with yellow gold. Then he

addresses the queen, and speaks suddenly to the astonishment 5

of all:—“Here am I whom you are seeking, before

you,—Æneas, the Trojan, snatched from the jaws of the

Libyan wave. O heart that alone of all has found pity for

Troy’s cruel agonies—that makes us, poor remnants of

Danaan fury, utterly spent by all the chances of land and 10

sea, destitute of all, partners of its city, of its very palace!

To pay such a debt of gratitude, Dido, is more than we can

do—more than can be done by all the survivors of the

Dardan nation, now scattered the wide world over. May

the gods—if there are powers that regard the pious, if 15

justice and conscious rectitude count for aught anywhere

on earth—may they give you the reward you merit!

What age had the happiness to bring you forth? what

godlike parents gave such nobleness to the world? While

the rivers run into the sea, while the shadows sweep along 20

the mountain-sides, while the stars draw life from the

sky, your glory and your name and your praise shall still

endure, whatever the land whose call I must obey.” So

saying, he stretches out his right hand to his friend Ilioneus,

his left to Serestus, and so on to others, gallant Gyas 25

and gallant Cloanthus.

Astounded was Dido, Sidon’s daughter, first at the hero’s

presence, then at his enormous sufferings, and she bespoke

him thus:—“What chance is it, goddess-born, that is

hunting you through such a wilderness of perils? what 30

violence throws you on our savage coasts? Are you, indeed,

the famed Æneas, whom to Anchises the Dardan,

Venus, queen of light and love, bore by the stream of

Simois? Aye, I remember Teucer coming to Sidon, driven

from the borders of his fatherland, hoping to gain a new 35

kingdom by the aid of Belus. Belus, my sire, was then

laying waste the rich fields of Cyprus, and ruling the isle

with a conqueror’s sway. Ever since that time I knew

the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the

Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol

the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that

he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come

then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. 5

I, too, have had a fortune like yours, which, after the

buffeting of countless sufferings, has been pleased that

I should find rest in this land at last. Myself no stranger

to sorrow, I am learning[109] to succour the unhappy.”

With these words, at the same moment she ushers 10

Æneas into her queenly palace, and orders a solemn

sacrifice at the temples of the gods. Meantime, as if

this were nought, she sends to his comrades at the shore

twenty bulls, a hundred huge swine with backs all bristling,

a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, and the 15

wine-god’s jovial bounty.

But the palace within is laid out with all the splendour of

regal luxury, and in the centre of the mansion they are

making ready for the banquet; the coverlets are embroidered

and of princely purple—on the tables is massy 20

silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits of Tyrian

ancestors, a long, long chain of story, derived through

hero after hero ever since the old nation was young.

Æneas, for his fatherly love would not leave his heart at

rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships to tell Ascanius 25

the news and conduct him to the city. On Ascanius

all a fond parent’s anxieties are centred. Presents,

moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he bids him

bring—a pall stiff with figures of gold, and a veil with

a border of yellow acanthus,[110] adornments of Argive 30

Helen,[111] which she carried away from Mycenæ, when she

went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, her mother

Leda’s marvellous gift; the sceptre, too, which Ilione

had once borne, the eldest of Priam’s daughters, and the

string of pearls for the neck, and the double coronal of 35

jewels and gold. With this to despatch, Achates was

bending his way to the ships.

But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new devices

in her breast, that Cupid,[112] form and feature changed, may

arrive in the room of the charmer Ascanius, and by the

presents he brings influence the queen to madness, and turn

the very marrow of her bones to fire. She fears the two-faced

generation, the double-tongued sons of Tyre; Juno’s 5

hatred scorches her like a flame, and as night draws on the

care comes back to her. So then with these words she

addresses her winged Love:—“My son, who art alone my

strength and my mighty power, my son, who laughest to

scorn our great father’s Typhœan[113] thunderbolts, to thee 10

I fly for aid, and make suppliant prayer of thy majesty.

How thy brother Æneas is tossed on the ocean the whole

world over by Juno’s implacable rancour I need not tell

thee—nay, thou hast often mingled thy grief with mine.

He is now the guest of Dido, the Phœnician woman, and 15

the spell of a courteous tongue is laid on him, and I fear

what may be the end of taking shelter under Juno’s

wing; she will never be idle at a time on which so much

hangs. Thus then I am planning to be first in the field,

surprising the queen by stratagem, and encompassing 20

her with fire, that no power may be able to work a change

in her, but that a mighty passion for Æneas may keep

her mine. For the way in which thou mayest bring this

about, listen to what I have been thinking. The young

heir of royalty, at his loved father’s summons, is making 25

ready to go to this Sidonian city—my soul’s darling

that he is—the bearer of presents that have survived

the sea and the flames of Troy. Him I will lull in deep

sleep and hide him in my hallowed dwelling high on

Cythera or Idalia, that by no chance he may know or mar 30

our plot. Do thou then for a single night, no more, artfully

counterfeit his form, and put on the boy’s usual looks,

thyself a boy, that when Dido, at the height of her joy,

shall take thee into her lap while the princely board is

laden and the vine-god’s liquor flowing, when she shall 35

be caressing thee and printing her fondest kisses on thy

cheek, thou mayest breathe concealed fire into her veins,

and steal upon her with poison.”[114]

At once Love complies with his fond mother’s words,

puts off his wings, and walks rejoicing in the gait of Iulus.

As for Ascanius, Venus sprinkles his form all over with the

dew of gentle slumber,[115] and carries him, as a goddess may,

lapped in her bosom, into Idalia’s lofty groves, where a 5

soft couch of amaracus enfolds him with its flowers, and

the fragrant breath of its sweet shade. Meanwhile Cupid

was on his way, all obedience, bearing the royal presents to

the Tyrians, and glad to follow Achates. When he arrives,

he finds the queen already settled on the gorgeous tapestry 10

of a golden couch, and occupying the central place. Already

father Æneas, already the chivalry of Troy are flocking

in, and stretching themselves here and there on coverlets

of purple. There are servants offering them water

for their hands, and deftly producing the bread from the 15

baskets, and presenting towels with shorn nap. Within

are fifty maidens, whose charge is in course to pile up provisions

in lasting store, and light up with fire the gods of the

hearth. A hundred others there are, and male attendants

of equal number and equal age, to load the table with 20

dishes, and set on the cups. The Tyrians, too, have

assembled in crowds through the festive hall, and scatter

themselves as invited over the embroidered couches.

There is marvelling at Æneas’ presents, marvelling at

Iulus, at those glowing features, where the god shines 25

through, and those words which he feigns so well, and at

the robe and the veil with the yellow acanthus border.

Chief of all, the unhappy victim of coming ruin cannot

satisfy herself with gazing,[116] and kindles as she looks,

the Phœnician woman, charmed with the boy and the 30

presents alike. He, after he has hung long in Æneas’

arms and round his neck, gratifying the intense fondness

of the sire he feigned to be his, finds his way to the queen.

She is riveted by him—riveted, eye and heart, and ever

and anon fondles him in her lap[117]—poor Dido, unconscious 35

how great a god is sitting heavy on that wretched bosom.

But he, with his mind still bent on his Acidalian mother,

is beginning to efface the name of Sychæus letter by letter,

and endeavouring to surprise by a living passion affections

long torpid, and a heart long unused to love.

When the banquet’s first lull was come, and the board

removed, then they set up the huge bowls and wreathe the

wine. A din rings to the roof—the voice rolls through 5

those spacious halls; lamps[118] hang from the gilded ceiling,

burning brightly, and flambeau-fires put out the night.

Then the queen called for a cup, heavy with jewels and

gold, and filled it with unmixed wine; the same which

had been used by Belus, and every king from Belus downward. 10

Then silence was commanded through the hall.

“Jupiter, for thou hast the name of lawgiver for guest and

host, grant that this day may be auspicious alike for the

Tyrians and the voyagers from Troy, and that its memory

may long live among our posterity. Be with us, Bacchus,[119] 15

the giver of jollity, and Juno, the queen of our blessings;

and you, the lords of Tyre, may your goodwill grace this

meeting.” She said, and poured on the table an offering

of the wine, and, the libation made, touched the cup

first with her lips, then handed it to Bitias, rallying his 20

slowness. Eagerly he quaffed the foaming goblet, and

drenched himself deep with its brimming gold. Then

came the other lords in order. Iopas, the long-haired

bard, takes his gilded lyre, and fills the hall with music;

he, whose teacher was the mighty Atlas.[120] His song[121] is of 25

the wanderings of the moon and the agonies of the sun,

whence sprung man’s race and the cattle, whence rain-water

and fire; of Arcturus and the showery Hyades,

and the twin Bears; why the winter suns make such

haste to dip in ocean, or what is the retarding cause that 30

bids the nights move slowly. Plaudits redouble from

the Tyrians, and the Trojans follow the lead. With

varied talk, too, she kept lengthening out the night, unhappy

Dido, drinking draughts of love long and deep,

as she asked much about Priam, about Hector much; 35

now what were the arms in which Aurora’s son had come

to battle; now what Diomede’s steeds were like; now how

great was Achilles. “Or rather, gentle guest,” cries she,

“tell us the story from the very first—all about the stratagems

of the Danaans, and the sad fate of your country,

and your own wanderings—for this is now the seventh

summer that is wafting you a wanderer still over every

land and wave.”