THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS.
B.C. 1200
AEneas's reflections.--He determines to go home.--AEneas is left at last
alone.--He goes away.--He sees the princess Helen.--Story of
Helen.--AEneas determines to destroy her.--His reflections.--The
apparition of Aphrodite.--Her words.--His mother's magical
protection.--He reaches his home.--The determination of
Anchises.--Creusa's entreaties.--The plan formed for the escape of the
family.--The lion's skin.--The household gods.--Creusa.--The whole
party proceed towards the gates.--Escape from the city.--Creusa is
lost.--AEneas goes back in search of Creusa.--He finds that his house
has been burned.--The apparition of Creusa.--Her predictions.--Her
farewell to her husband.--Preparations for departure.--AEneas's company
increases.--His fleet.--The embarkation.--Map of the wanderings of
AEneas.--A dreadful prodigy.--The bleeding myrtle.--Words of the
myrtle.--Story of Polydorus.--AEneas leaves Thrace.--His various
wanderings.--The attempted settlement at Crete.--Calamities.--AEneas's
perplexity.--Advice of Anchises.--Scene at night.--The household
deities.--Their address to AEneas.--Effect of this address.--Subsequent
adventures.--Danger of shipwreck.--The harpies.--AEneas driven
away.--Dangers at Mt. Etna.--The one-eyed giants.--Polyphemus.--Remarks
on the story of AEneas.
AEneas, from his station upon the battlements of a neighboring edifice,
witnessed the taking of the palace and the death of Priam. He
immediately gave up all for lost, and turned his thoughts at once to
the sole question of the means of saving himself and his family from
impending destruction. He thought of his father, Anchises, who at this
time lived with him in the city, and was nearly of the same age as
Priam the king, whom he had just seen so cruelly slain. He thought of
his wife too, whom he had left at home, and of his little son
Ascanius, and he began now to be overwhelmed with the apprehension,
that the besiegers had found their way to his dwelling, and were,
perhaps, at that very moment plundering and destroying it and
perpetrating cruel deeds of violence and outrage upon his wife and
family. He determined immediately to hasten home.
He looked around to see who of his companions remained with him.
There was not one. They had all gone and left him alone. Some had
leaped down from the battlements and made their escape to other parts
of the city. Some had fallen in the attempt to leap, and had perished
in the flames that were burning among the buildings beneath them.
Others still had been reached by darts and arrows from below, and had
tumbled headlong from their lofty height into the street beneath them.
The Greeks, too, had left that part of the city. When the destruction
of the palace had been effected, there was no longer any motive to
remain, and they had gone away, one band after another, with loud
shouts of exultation and defiance, to seek new combats in other
quarters of the city. AEneas listened to the sounds of their voices, as
they gradually died away upon his ear. Thus, in one way and another,
all had gone, and AEneas found himself alone.
AEneas contrived to find his way back safely to the street, and then
stealthily choosing his way, and vigilantly watching against the
dangers that surrounded him, he advanced cautiously among the ruins of
the palace, in the direction toward his own home. He had not
proceeded far before he saw a female figure lurking in the shadow of
an altar near which he had to pass. It proved to be the princess
Helen.
[Illustration: HELEN.]
Helen was a Grecian princess, formerly the wife of Menelaus, king of
Sparta, but she had eloped from Greece some years before, with Paris,
the son of Priam, king of Troy, and this elopement had been the whole
cause of the Trojan war. In the first instance, Menelaus, accompanied
by another Grecian chieftain, went to Troy and demanded that Helen
should be given up again to her proper husband. Paris refused to
surrender her. Menelaus then returned to Greece and organized a grand
expedition to proceed to Troy and recapture the queen. This was the
origin of the war. The people, therefore, looked upon Helen as the
cause, whether innocent or guilty, of all their calamities.
When AEneas, therefore, who was, as may well be supposed, in no very
amiable or gentle temper, as he hurried along away from the smoking
ruins of the palace toward his home, saw Helen endeavoring to screen
herself from the destruction which she had been the means of bringing
upon all that he held dear, he was aroused to a phrensy of anger
against her, and determined to avenge the wrongs of his country by her
destruction. "I will kill her," said he to himself, as he rushed
forward toward the spot where she was concealed. "There is no great
glory it is true in wreaking vengeance on a woman, or in bringing her
to the punishment which her crimes deserve. Still I will kill her, and
I shall be commended for the deed. She shall not, after bringing ruin
upon us, escape herself, and go back to Greece in safety and be a
queen there again."
As AEneas said these words, rushing forward at the same time, sword in
hand, he was suddenly intercepted and brought to a stand by the
apparition of his mother, the goddess Aphrodite, who all at once stood
in the way before him. She stopped him, took him by the hand, urged
him to restrain his useless anger, and calmed and quieted him with
soothing words. "It is not Helen," said she, "that has caused the
destruction of Troy. It is through the irresistible and irrevocable
decrees of the gods that the city has fallen. It is useless for you to
struggle against inevitable destiny, or to attempt to take vengeance
on mere human means and instrumentalities. Think no more of Helen.
Think of your family. Your aged father, your helpless wife, your
little son,--where are they? Even now while you are wasting time here
in vain attempts to take vengeance on Helen for what the gods have
done, all that are near and dear to you are surrounded by ferocious
enemies thirsting for their blood. Fly to them and save them. I shall
accompany you, though unseen, and will protect you and them from
every impending danger."
As soon as Aphrodite had spoken these words she disappeared from view.
AEneas, following her injunctions, went directly toward his home; and
he found as he passed along the streets that the way was opened for
him, by mysterious movements among the armed bands which were passing
in every direction about the city, in such a manner as to convince him
that his mother was really accompanying him, and protecting his way by
her supernatural powers.
When he reached home the first person whom he saw was Anchises his
father. He told Anchises that all was lost, and that nothing now
remained for them but to seek safety for themselves by flying to the
mountains behind the city. But Anchises refused to go. "You who are
young," said he, "and who have enough of life before you to be worth
preserving, may fly. As for me I will not attempt to save the little
remnant that remains to me, to be spent, if saved, in miserable exile.
If the powers of heaven had intended that I should have lived any
longer, they would have spared my native city,--my only home. You may
go yourselves, but leave me here to die."
In saying these words Anchises turned away in great despondency,
firmly fixed, apparently, in his determination to remain and share the
fate of the city. AEneas and Creusa his wife joined their entreaties in
urging him to go away. But he would not be persuaded. AEneas then
declared that he would not go and leave his father. If one was to die
they would all die, he said, together. He called for his armor and
began to put it on, resolving to go out again into the streets of the
city and die, since he must die, in the act of destroying his
destroyers.
He was, however, prevented from carrying this determination into
effect, by Creusa's intervention, who fell down before him at the
threshold of the door, almost frantic with excitement and terror, and
holding her little son Ascanius with one arm, and clasping her
husband's knees with the other, she begged him not to leave them.
"Stay and save us," said she; "do not go and throw your life away. Or,
if you will go, take us with you that we may all die together."
The conflict of impulses and passions in this unhappy family
continued for some time longer, but it ended at last, in the yielding
of Anchises to the wishes of the rest, and they all resolved to fly.
In the mean time, the noise and uproar in the streets of the city,
were drawing nearer and nearer, and the light of the burning buildings
breaking out continually at new points in the progress of the
conflagration, indicated that no time was to be lost. AEneas hastily
formed his plan. His father was too old and infirm to go himself
through the city. AEneas determined therefore to carry him upon his
shoulders. Little Ascanius was to walk along by his side. Creusa was
to follow, keeping as close as possible to her husband lest she should
lose him in the darkness of the night, or in the scenes of uproar and
confusion through which they would have to pass on the way. The
domestics of the family were to escape from the city by different
routes, each choosing his own, in order to avoid attracting the
attention of their enemies; and when once without the gates they were
all to rendezvous again at a certain rising ground, not far from the
city, which AEneas designated to them by means of an old deserted
temple which marked the spot, and a venerable cypress which grew
there.
This plan being formed the party immediately proceeded to put it in
execution. AEneas spread a lion's skin over his shoulders to make the
resting-place more easy for his father, or perhaps to lighten the
pressure of the heavy burden upon his own limbs. Anchises took what
were called the household gods, in his hands. These were sacred images
which it was customary to keep, in those days, in every dwelling, as
the symbol and embodiment of divine protection. To save these images,
when every thing else was given up for lost, was always the object of
the last desperate effort of the husband and father. AEneas in this
case asked his father to take these images, as it would have been an
impiety for him, having come fresh from scenes of battle and
bloodshed, to have put his hand upon them, without previously
performing some ceremony of purification. Ascanius took hold of his
father's hand. Creusa followed behind. Thus arranged they sallied
forth from the house into the streets--all dark and gloomy, except so
far as they received a partial and inconstant light from the flames
of the distant conflagrations, which glared in the sky, and flashed
sometimes upon battlements and towers, and upon the tops of lofty
dwellings.
AEneas pressed steadily on, though in a state continually of the
highest excitement and apprehension. He kept stealthily along wherever
he could find the deepest shadows, under walls, and through the most
obscure and the narrowest streets. He was in constant fear lest some
stray dart or arrow should strike Anchises or Creusa, or lest some
band of Greeks should come suddenly upon them, in which case he knew
well that they would all be cut down without mercy, for, loaded down
as he was with his burden, he would be entirely unable to do any thing
to defend either himself or them. The party, however, for a time
seemed to escape all these dangers, but at length, just as they were
approaching the gate of the city, and began to think that they were
safe, they were suddenly alarmed by a loud uproar, and by a rush of
men which came in toward them from some streets in that quarter of the
city, and threatened to overwhelm them. Anchises was greatly alarmed.
He saw the gleaming weapons of the Greeks who were rushing toward
them, and he called out to AEneas to fly faster, or to turn off some
other way, in order to escape the impending danger. AEneas was
terrified by the shouts and uproar which he heard, and his mind was
for a moment confused by the bewildering influences of the scene. He
however hurried forward, running this way and that, wherever there
seemed the best prospect of escape, and often embarrassed and retarded
in his flight by the crowds of people who were moving confusedly in
all directions. At length, however, he succeeded in finding egress
from the city. He pressed on, without stopping to look behind him till
he reached the appointed place of rendezvous on the hill, and then
gently laying down his burden, he looked around for Creusa. She was
nowhere to be seen.
AEneas was in utter consternation, at finding that his wife was gone.
He mourned and lamented this dreadful calamity with loud exclamations
of grief and despair; then reflecting that it was a time for action
and not for idle grief, he hastened to conceal his father and Ascanius
in a dark and winding valley behind the hill, and leaving them there
under the charge of his domestics, he hastened back to the city to
see if Creusa could be found.
He armed himself completely before he went, being in his desperation
determined to encounter every danger in his attempts to find and to
recover his beloved wife. He went directly to the gate from which he
had come out, and re-entering the city there, he began to retrace, as
well as he could, the way that he had taken in coming out of the
city--guiding himself as he went, by the light of the flames which
rose up here and there from the burning buildings.
He went on in this way in a desperate state of agitation and distress,
searching everywhere but seeing nothing of Creusa. At length he
thought it possible that she had concluded, when she found herself
separated from him, to go back to the house, as the safest place of
refuge for her, and he determined, accordingly, to go and seek her
there. This was his last hope, and most cruelly was it disappointed
when he came to the place of his dwelling.
He found his house, when he arrived near the spot, all in flames. The
surrounding buildings were burning too, and the streets in the
neighborhood were piled up with furniture and goods which the
wretched inmates of the dwellings had vainly endeavored to save. These
inmates themselves were standing around, distracted with grief and
terror, and gazing hopelessly upon the scene of devastation before
them.
AEneas saw all these things at a glance, and immediately, in a phrensy
of excitement, began to call out Creusa's name. He went to and fro
among the groups surrounding the fire, calling for her in a frantic
manner, and imploring all whom he saw to give him some tidings of her.
All was, however, in vain. She could not be found. AEneas then went
roaming about through other portions of the city, seeking her
everywhere, and inquiring for her of every person whom he met that had
the appearance of being a friend. His suspense, however, was
terminated at last by his suddenly coming upon an apparition of the
spirit of Creusa, which rose before him in a solitary part of the
city, and arrested his progress. The apparition was of preternatural
size, and it stood before him in so ethereal and shadow-like a form,
and the features beamed upon him with so calm and placid and benignant
an expression, as convinced him that the vision was not of this
world. AEneas saw at a glance that Creusa's earthly sorrows and
sufferings were ended forever.
At first he was shocked and terrified at the spectacle. Creusa,
however, endeavored to calm and quiet him by soothing words. "My
dearest husband," said she, "do not give way thus to anxiety and
grief. The events which have befallen us, have not come by chance.
They are all ordered by an overruling providence that is omnipotent
and divine. It was predetermined by the decrees of heaven that you
were not to take me with you in your flight. I have learned what your
future destiny is to be. There is a long period of weary wandering
before you, over the ocean and on the land, and you will have many
difficulties, dangers, and trials to incur. You will, however, be
conducted safely through them all, and will in the end find a peaceful
and happy home on the banks of the Tiber. There you will found a new
kingdom; a princess is even now provided for you there, to become your
bride. Cease then to mourn for me; rather rejoice that I did not fall
a captive into the hands of our enemies, to be carried away into
Greece and made a slave. I am free, and you must not lament my fate.
Farewell. Love Ascanius for my sake, and watch over him and protect
him as long as you live."
Having spoken these words, the vision began to disappear. AEneas
endeavored to clasp the beloved image in his arms to retain it, but it
was intangible and evanescent, and, before he could speak to it, it
was gone, and he was left standing in the desolate and gloomy street
alone. He turned at length slowly away; and solitary, thoughtful and
sad, he went back to the gate of the city, and thence out to the
valley where he had concealed Anchises and his little son.
He found them safe. The whole party then sought places of retreat
among the glens and mountains, where they could remain concealed a few
days, while AEneas and his companions could make arrangements for
abandoning the country altogether. These arrangements were soon
completed. As soon as the Greeks had retired, so that they could come
out without danger from their place of retreat, AEneas employed his men
in building a number of small vessels, fitting them, as was usual in
those days, both with sails and oars.
During the progress of these preparations, small parties of Trojans
were coming in continually, day by day, to join him; being drawn
successively from their hiding-places among the mountains, by hearing
that the Greeks had gone away, and that AEneas was gradually assembling
the remnant of the Trojans on the shore. The numbers thus collected at
AEneas's encampment gradually increased, and as AEneas enlarged and
extended his naval preparations to correspond with the augmenting
numbers of his adherents, he found when he was ready to set sail, that
he was at the head of a very respectable naval and military force.
When the fleet at last was ready, he put a stock of provisions on
board, and embarked his men,--taking, of course, Anchises and Ascanius
with him. As soon as a favorable wind arose, the expedition set sail.
As the vessels moved slowly away, the decks were covered with men and
women, who gazed mournfully at the receding shores, conscious that
they were bidding a final farewell to their native land.
[Illustration: WANDERINGS OF AENEAS.]
The nearest country within reach in leaving the Trojan coast, was
Thrace--a country lying north of the Egean Sea, and of the Propontis,
being separated, in fact, in one part, from the Trojan territories,
only by the Hellespont. AEneas turned his course northward toward this
country, and, after a short voyage, landed there, and attempted to
make a settlement. He was, however, prevented from remaining long, by
a dreadful prodigy which he witnessed there, and which induced him to
leave those shores very precipitously. The prodigy was this:
They had erected an altar on the shore, after they had landed, and
were preparing to offer the sacrifices customary on such occasions,
when AEneas, wishing to shade the altar with boughs, went to a myrtle
bush which was growing near, and began to pull up the green shoots
from the ground. To his astonishment and horror, he found that blood
flowed from the roots whenever they were broken. Drops of what
appeared to be human blood would ooze from the ruptured part as he
held the shoot in his hand, and fall slowly to the ground. He was
greatly terrified at this spectacle, considering it as some omen of
very dreadful import. He immediately and instinctively offered up a
prayer to the presiding deities of the land, that they would avert
from him the evil influences, whatever they might be, which the omen
seemed to portend, or that they would at least explain the meaning of
the prodigy. After offering this prayer, he took hold of another stem
of the myrtle, and attempted to draw it from the ground, in order to
see whether any change in the appearances exhibited by the prodigy
had been effected by his prayer. At the instant, however, when the
roots began to give way, he heard a groan coming up from the ground
below, as if from a person in suffering. Immediately afterward a
voice, in a mournful and sepulchral accent, began to beg him to go
away, and cease disturbing the repose of the dead. "What you are
tearing and lacerating," said the voice, "is not a tree, but a man. I
am Polydorus. I was killed by the king of Thrace, and instead of
burial, have been turned into a myrtle growing on the shore."
Polydorus was a Trojan prince. He was the youngest son of Priam, and
had been sent some years before to Thrace, to be brought up in the
court of the Thracian king. He had been provided with a large supply
of money and treasure when he left Troy, in order that all his wants
might be abundantly supplied, and that he might maintain, during his
absence from home, the position to which his rank as a Trojan prince
entitled him. His treasures, however, which had been provided for him
by his father as his sure reliance for support and protection, became
the occasion of his ruin--for the Thracian king, when he found that
the war was going against the Trojans, and that Priam the father was
slain, and the city destroyed, murdered the helpless son to get
possession of his gold.
AEneas and his companions were shocked to hear this story, and
perceived at once that Thrace was no place of safety for them. They
resolved immediately to leave the coast and seek their fortunes in
other regions. They however, first, in secrecy and silence, but with
great solemnity, performed those funeral rites for Polydorus which
were considered in those ages essential to the repose of the dead.
When these mournful ceremonies were ended they embarked on board their
ships again and sailed away.
After this, the party of AEneas spent many months in weary voyages from
island to island, and from shore to shore, along the Mediterranean
sea, encountering every imaginable difficulty and danger, and meeting
continually with the strangest and most romantic adventures. At one
time they were misled by a mistaken interpretation of prophecy to
attempt a settlement in Crete--a green and beautiful island lying
south of the Egean sea. They had applied to a sacred oracle, which
had its seat at a certain consecrated spot which they visited in the
course of their progress southward through the Egean sea, asking the
oracle to direct them where to go in order to find a settled home. The
oracle, in answer to their request, informed them that they were to go
to the land that their ancestors had originally come from, before
their settlement in Troy. AEneas applied to Anchises to inform them
what land this was. Anchises replied, that he thought it was Crete.
There was an ancient tradition, he said, that some distinguished men
among the ancestors of the Trojans had originated in Crete; and he
presumed accordingly that that was the land to which the oracle
referred.
The course of the little fleet was accordingly directed southward, and
in due time the expedition safely reached the island of Crete, and
landed there. They immediately commenced the work of effecting a
settlement. They drew the ships up upon the shore; they laid out a
city; they inclosed and planted fields, and began to build their
houses. In a short time, however, all their bright prospects of rest
and security were blighted by the breaking out of a dreadful
pestilence among them. Many died; others who still lived, were
utterly prostrated by the effects of the disease, and crawled about,
emaciated and wretched, a miserable and piteous spectacle to behold.
To crown their misfortunes, a great drought came on. The grain which
they had planted was dried up and killed in the fields; and thus, in
addition to the horrors of pestilence, they were threatened with the
still greater horrors of famine. Their distress was extreme, and they
were utterly at a loss to know what to do.
In this extremity Anchises recommended that they should send back to
the oracle to inquire more particularly in respect to the meaning of
the former response, in order to ascertain whether they had, by
possibility, misinterpreted it, and made their settlement on the wrong
ground. Or, if this was not the case, to learn by what other error or
fault they had displeased the celestial powers, and brought upon
themselves such terrible judgments. AEneas determined to adopt this
advice, but he was prevented from carrying his intentions into effect
by the following occurrence.
One night he was lying upon his couch in his dwelling,--so harassed
by his anxieties and cares that he could not sleep, and revolving in
his mind all possible plans for extricating himself and his followers
from the difficulties which environed them. The moon shone in at the
windows, and by the light of this luminary he saw, reposing in their
shrines in the opposite side of the apartment where he was sleeping,
the household images which he had rescued from the flames of Troy. As
he looked upon these divinities in the still and solemn hour of
midnight, oppressed with anxiety and care, one of them began to
address him.
"We are commissioned," said this supernatural voice, "by Apollo, whose
oracle you are intending to consult again, to give you the answer that
you desire, without requiring you to go back to his temple. It is true
that you have erred in attempting to make a settlement in Crete. This
is not the land which is destined to be your home. You must leave
these shores, and continue your voyage. The land which is destined to
receive you is Italy, a land far removed from this spot, and your way
to it lies over wide and boisterous seas. Do not be discouraged,
however, on this account or on account of the calamities which now
impend over you. You will be prospered in the end. You will reach
Italy in safety, and there you will lay the foundations of a mighty
empire, which in days to come will extend its dominion far and wide
among the nations of the earth. Take courage, then, and embark once
more in your ships with a cheerful and confident heart. You are safe,
and in the end all will turn out well."
The strength and spirits of the desponding adventurer were very
essentially revived by this encouragement. He immediately prepared to
obey the injunctions which had been thus divinely communicated to him,
and in a short time the half-built city was abandoned, and the
expedition once more embarked on board the fleet and proceeded to sea.
They met in their subsequent wanderings with a great variety of
adventures, but it would extend this portion of our narrative too far,
to relate them all. They encountered a storm by which for three days
and three nights they were tossed to and fro, without seeing sun or
stars, and of course without any guidance whatever; and during all
this time they were in the most imminent danger of being overwhelmed
and destroyed by the billows which rolled sublimely and frightfully
around them. At another time, having landed for rest and refreshment
among a group of Grecian islands, they were attacked by the _harpies_,
birds of prey of prodigious size and most offensive habits, and fierce
and voracious beyond description. The harpies were celebrated, in
fact, in many of the ancient tales, as a race of beings that infested
certain shores, and often teased and tormented the mariners and
adventurers that happened to come among them. Some said, however, that
there was not a race of such beings, but only two or three in all, and
they gave their names. And yet different narrators gave different
names, among which were Aelopos, Nicothoe, Ocythoe, Ocypoae, Celaeno,
Acholoe, and Aello. Some said that the harpies had the faces and forms
of women. Others described them as frightfully ugly; but all agree in
representing them as voracious beyond description, always greedily
devouring every thing that they could get within reach of their claws.
These fierce monsters flew down upon AEneas and his party, and carried
away the food from off the table before them; and even attacked the
men themselves. The men then armed themselves with swords, secretly,
and waited for the next approach of the harpies, intending to kill
them, when they came near. But the nimble marauders eluded all their
blows, and escaped with their plunder as before. At length the
expedition was driven away from the island altogether, by these
ravenous fowls, and when they were embarking on board of their
vessels, the leader of the harpies perched herself upon a rock
overlooking the scene, and in a human voice loaded AEneas and his
companions, as they went away, with taunts and execrations.
The expedition passed one night in great terror and dread in the
vicinity of Mount Etna, where they had landed. The awful eruptions of
smoke, and flame, and burning lava, which issued at midnight from the
summit of the mountain,--the thundering sounds which they heard
rolling beneath them, through the ground, and the dread which was
inspired in their minds by the terrible monsters that dwelt beneath
the mountains, as they supposed, and fed the fires, all combined to
impress them with a sense of unutterable awe; and as soon as the light
of the morning enabled them to resume their course, they made all
haste to get away from so appalling a scene. At another time they
touched upon a coast which was inhabited by a race of one-eyed
giants,--monsters of enormous magnitude and of remorseless cruelty.
They were cannibals,--feeding on the bodies of men whom they killed by
grasping them in their hands and beating them against the rocks which
formed the sides of their den. Some men whom one of these monsters,
named Polyphemus, had shut up in his cavern, contrived to surprise
their keeper in his sleep, and though they were wholly unable to kill
him on account of his colossal magnitude, they succeeded in putting
out his eye, and AEneas and his companions saw the blinded giant, as
they passed along the coast, wading in the sea, and bathing his wound.
He was guiding his footsteps as he walked, by means of the trunk of a
tall pine which served him for a staff.
At length, however, after the lapse of a long period of time, and
after meeting with a great variety of adventures to which we can not
even here allude, AEneas and his party reached the shores of Italy, at
the point which by divine intimations had been pointed out to them as
the place where they were to land.[D]
[Footnote D: See Map, page 134.]
The story of the life and adventures of AEneas, which we have given in
this and in the preceding chapters, is a faithful summary of the
narrative which the poetic historians of those days recorded. It is,
of course, not to be relied upon as a narrative of facts; but it is
worthy of very special attention by every cultivated mind of the
present day, from the fact, that such is the beauty, the grace, the
melody, the inimitable poetic perfection with which the story is told,
in the language in which the original record stands, that the
narrative has made a more deep, and widespread, and lasting impression
upon the human mind than any other narrative perhaps that ever was
penned.