THE TROJANS LAND IN LATIUM.
It has been said that this poem combines in some degree the characters
both of the Iliad and of the Odyssey. Up to this point we have had the
wanderings and adventures of the Trojan hero: he has been the Ulysses of
his own tale. Henceforth we have a tale of the camp and the
battle-field, of siege and defence, and personal combat; and we are
reminded, in almost every passage, of the stirring scenes of the Iliad.
Æneas, on his ascent into upper air, rejoins his crew, and the fleet,
setting sail from Cumæ, enters the noble harbour of Caieta. Not that the
place had any such name as yet; but there the hero buries his old nurse,
and gives her name to the spot. Once more embarking, they pass the
promontory of Circe, and hear, as they sail by, the roars and yells of
the unhappy prisoners, changed by the spells of the sorceress into the
shape of brutes, whom she holds in bondage there. They listen and
shudder, and bless the favouring gale which bears them away from such
perilous neighbourhood. Then, with the morrow’s dawn, the fleet enters
the mouth of the Tiber. The picture of the galleys going up the stream
is very beautiful:--
“The sea was reddening with the dawn:
The queen of morn on high
Was seen in rosy chariot drawn
Against a saffron sky,
When on the bosom of the deep
The Zephyrs dropped at once to sleep,
And, struck with calm, the tired oars strain
Against the smooth unmoving main.
Now from the deep Æneas sees
A mighty grove of glancing trees.
Embowered amid the silvan scene
Old Tiber winds his banks between,
And in the lap of ocean pours
His gulfy stream, his sandy stores.
Around, gay birds of diverse wing,
Accustomed there to fly or sing,
Were fluttering on from spray to spray
And soothing ether with their lay.
He bids his comrades turn aside
And landward set each vessel’s head,
And enters in triumphant pride
The river’s shadowy bed.”
War is now the subject, and Homer is the model. Yet the Roman poet never
shows his individual genius more strongly than in his treatment of the
external scenery amidst which his action lies. He is still the
worshipper of Nature, even while he sets himself to sing of battles, as
he was in his Pastorals and Georgics. Homer tells us of the rivers of
the Troad, Simois and Scamander--but it is only as they affect Hector or
Achilles; his heart is all the while with the combatants, not with the
flowing river. Not so Virgil: with him we feel the cool breeze, we see
the glancing shadow of the trees upon the river, we hear the flutter of
the startled birds, and the long plash of the oars in the water: we sail
with Æneas on a party of pleasure, rather than a voyage of conquest.
Latium is reached at last. They moor their galleys under the trees which
fringe the river-banks, and land to make their morning meal. It is but a
scant one. Such wild fruits as they can collect are laid upon the
wheaten cakes which they have brought with them, and when the fruit is
finished they attack the cakes themselves. “Lo!” exclaims Iulus--“we are
eating our tables!” Joyfully Æneas recognises, in the boy’s involuntary
interpretation, the fulfilment of the curse of the Harpies,[38] and of
certain strange words of his father Anchises, that when they were
reduced to “eat their tables,” then they had found their destined home,
and might begin to build their city. This, then, is their promised rest.
He pours libations and offers prayers to the gods of the land, and peals
of thunder from a cloudless sky seem to announce that the invocation is
accepted.
As soon as the moon rises, scouts are sent out to explore the country.
The king of the land is old Latinus, whose palace is near at hand. He
has one only daughter, Lavinia, for whose hand all the neighbouring
princes have long been suitors. Turnus of Ardea, the gallant chief of
the Rutuli, tallest and handsomest of all the rivals, has the goodwill
of the queen-mother; the maiden’s own choice in such a matter being the
last consideration which would enter into the thought of a Roman poet.
When the Trojan chief has thus informed himself in some measure as to
the localities, he sends a formal embassy to King Latinus’s court,
carrying presents in token of goodwill. Meanwhile he busies himself in
hurriedly marking out the boundaries of his new town, and fencing it
round with an earthen rampart and a palisade.
The strangers are ushered into the presence of Latinus, where he sits in
his ancestral palace, surrounded by the cedar statues of the demi-gods
and heroes of his line.
“There too were spoils of bygone wars
Hung on the portals,--captive cars,
Strong city-gates with massive bars,
And battle-axes keen,
And plumy cones from helmets shorn,
And beaks from vanquished vessels torn,
And darts, and bucklers sheen.”
He knows at once who his visitors are. Strange portents had long
disturbed his court, and had warned him that his daughter must wed with
no prince of Latian race: that a foreign host and a stranger bridegroom
will come to claim her, and that the kings who shall spring from this
union will spread the Latian name from sea to sea. He inquires the
strangers’ errand courteously, and the Trojan Ilioneus, as spokesman of
the embassy, thus makes reply:--
“We come not to your friendly coast
By random gale o’er ocean tost,
Nor land nor star has made us stray
From our determined line of way:
Of steady purpose one and all
We flock beneath your city wall,
Driven from an empire, greater none
Within the circuit of the sun.
Jove is our sire: to Jove’s high race
We, Dardans born, our lineage trace:
Jove’s seed, the monarch we obey,
Æneas, sends us here to-day.
How fierce a storm from Argos sent
On Ida’s plains its fury spent,
How Fate in dire collision hurled
The eastern and the western world,
E’en he has heard, whom earth’s last verge
Just separates from the circling surge,
And he who, to his kind unknown,
Dwells midmost ’neath the torrid zone.
Swept by that deluge o’er the foam
For our lorn gods we ask a home:
A belt of sand is all we crave,
And man’s free birthright, air and wave.
We shall not shame your Latin crown,
Nor light shall be your own renown,
Nor time obliterate the debt,
Nor Italy the hour regret
When Troy with outstretched arms she met.
I swear it by Æneas’ fate,
By that right hand which makes him great,
In peace and war approved alike
A friend to aid, a foe to strike,
Full oft have mighty nations--nay,
Disdain not that unsought we pray,
Nor deem that wreaths and lowly speech
The grandeur of our name impeach--
Full oft with zeal and earnest prayers
Have nations wooed us to be theirs;
But Heaven’s high fate, with stern command,
Impelled us still to this your land.
Here Dardanus was born, and here
Apollo bids our race return:
To Tyrrhene Tiber points the seer
And pure Numicius’ hallowed urn.
These presents too our hands convey,
Scant relics of a happier day,
From burning Ilium snatched away.
From this bright gold before the shrine
His sire Anchises poured the wine:
With these adornments Priam sate
’Mid gathering crowds in kingly state,
The sceptre and the diadem:
Troy’s women wrought the vesture’s hem.”
The king muses thoughtfully for a while: but he recognises the
fulfilment of the auguries. Let Æneas come--he is welcome. If this be
the bridegroom sent by heaven, he shall be more welcome still. He sends
back the ambassadors in right royal fashion, all mounted on choice
horses from his own stud, and with a chariot of honour to convey their
chief to an interview.
Juno’s relentless hatred is stirred once more. Will neither fire nor
sword kill, nor water drown, these accursed Trojans? Shall she, the
Queen of Heaven, be baffled by a mortal like Æneas? If it be written in
the fates that he is to wed Lavinia, her marriage-dower shall be paid in
Trojan and Latian blood. Venus shall find that she, like Hecuba, has
borne a firebrand--that Æneas, like Paris, shall light a flame that
shall consume his nation. If the powers of heaven will not take her
part, she will seek aid from hell. She summons the Fury Alecto from the
shades below, and bids her sow strife between the people of Latinus and
their foreign visitors.
The Fury, rejoicing in her errand, seeks the chamber of Latinus’s queen,
and darts into her breast one of the living serpents that serve her for
coils of hair. Straightway the queen is seized with madness, and, after
vainly trying to rouse her husband to oppose this foreign marriage, she
rushes like a Bacchanal through the neighbouring villages, and calls
upon the mothers of Latium to avenge her wrongs and rescue her daughter.
Next the Fury instils the same venom into the heart of Turnus, where he
lies in his town of Ardea. He has been the champion of Latium against
their enemies the Tuscans, and this is their gratitude--to give his
promised bride to another! The young chief leaps from his couch, calls
madly for his arms, and orders an instant march upon Latinus’s capital.
He will expel these intruders at once, and demand the princess from her
father by force of arms.
Meanwhile--still at the instigation of Alecto--the seeds of quarrel have
been sown between the men of Latium and their Trojan guests. There is a
tame deer which has been nursed in the house of Tyrrheus, the ranger of
the royal forest,--a pet and favourite with all the country-folk.
“Fair Sylvia, daughter of the race,
Its horns with leaves would interlace,
Comb smooth its shaggy coat, and lave
Its body in the crystal wave.
Tame and obedient, it would stray
Free through the woods a summer’s day,
And home again at night repair,
E’en of itself, how late soe’er.”
In evil hour Ascanius, riding out with a hunting-party, gets his hounds
upon the scent, and shoots the poor animal as it floats quietly down the
river in the noon-day heat. It has just strength to carry the Trojan
arrow in its body to its mistress’s door, and die moaning at her
feet.[39] Tyrrheus and his household are mad with rage, and rouse the
whole country-side against this wanton outrage, as they hold it, on the
part of the strangers. The shepherd’s horn sounds out its summons to the
whole neighbourhood; and the angry rustics, when they hear the story,
seize axes, staves, and such rude weapons as come first to hand, and
attack the young prince and his hunting-party. The Trojans come out from
their intrenchment to rescue their friends, and the fray now becomes a
regular battle, no longer fought with stakes and hunting implements, but
with sword and spear. Blood is soon shed; the rustic weapons are no
match for the Trojan steel; and young Almo, the ranger’s son, is carried
home dead, amongst others. Almost a sadder loss is that of the good old
yeoman Galæsus, who yokes a hundred ploughs, and whose character gives
him even more influence than his wealth. He is slain as he stands
between the combatants, vainly pleading for peace.
The bodies are carried through the city streets, as in a modern
revolution, by way of demonstration. There they make their dumb appeal
to the passions of the people--
“Young Almo in his comely grace,
And old Galæsus’ mangled face”--
and the appeal is answered by a universal cry for “War!”