There is a hope that, the fleet having received life in the form of sea Nymphs, the Rutulian may desist from the war through fear, on account of this prodigy. He persists, however, and each side has its own Deities;[47] and they have courage, equal to the Gods. And now they do not seek kingdoms as a dower, nor the sceptre of a father-in-law, nor thee, virgin Lavinia, but only to conquer; and they wage the war through shame at desisting. At length, Venus sees the arms of her son victorious, and Turnus falls; Ardea falls, which, while Turnus lived, was called ‘the mighty.’ After ruthless flames consumed it, and its houses sank down amid the heated embers, a bird, then known for the first time, flew aloft from the midst of the heap, and beat the ashes with the flapping of its wings. The voice, the leanness, the paleness, and every thing that befits a captured city, and the very name of the city, remain in that bird; and Ardea itself is bewailed by the beating of its wings.
And now the merit of Æneas had obliged all the Deities, and Juno herself, to put an end to their former resentment; when, the power of the rising Iülus being now well established, the hero, the son of Cytherea, was ripe for heaven, Venus, too, had solicited the Gods above; and hanging round the neck of her parent had said: “My father, who hast never proved unkind to me at any time, I beseech thee now to be most indulgent to me; and to grant, dearest father, to my Æneas, who, born of my blood, has made thee a grandsire, xiv. 589-608. a godhead, even though of the lowest class; so that thou only grant him one. It is enough to have once beheld the unsightly realms, enough to have once passed over the Stygian streams.” The Gods assented; nor did his royal wife keep her countenance unmoved; but, with pleased countenance, she nodded assent. Then her father said; “You are worthy of the gift of heaven; both thou who askest, and he, for whom thou askest: receive, my daughter, what thou dost desire.” Thus he decrees. She rejoices, and gives thanks to her parent; and, borne by her harnessed doves through the light air, she arrives at the Laurentine shores; where Numicius,[48] covered with reeds, winds to the neighbouring sea with the waters of his stream. Him she bids to wash off from Æneas whatever is subject to death, and to bear it beneath the ocean in his silent course.
The horned river performed the commands of Venus; and with his waters washed away from Æneas whatever was mortal, and sprinkled him. His superior essence remained. His mother anointed his body thus purified with divine odours, and touched his face with ambrosia, mingled with sweet nectar, and made him a God. Him the people of Quirinus, called Indiges,[49] and endowed with a temple and with altars.
[ EXPLANATION.]
It is asserted by some writers, that when the ships of Æneas were set on fire by Turnus, a tempest arose, which extinguished the flames; on which circumstance the story here related by Ovid was founded. Perhaps Virgil was the author of the fiction, as he is the first known to have related it, and is closely followed by Ovid in the account of the delivery of the ships.
The story of the heron arising out of the flames of Ardea seems to be xiv. 609-624. founded on a very simple fact. It is merely a poetical method of accounting for the Latin name of that bird, which was very plentiful in the vicinity of the city of Ardea, and, perhaps, thence derived its name of ‘ardea.’ The story may have been the more readily suggested to the punning mind of Ovid, from the resemblance of the Latin verb ‘ardeo,’ signifying ‘to burn,’ to that name.
Some of the ancient authors say, that after killing Turnus and marrying Lavinia, Æneas was killed in battle with Mezentius, after a reign of three years, leaving his wife pregnant with a son, afterwards known by the name of Sylvius. His body not being found after the battle, it was given out that his Goddess mother had translated him to heaven, and he was thenceforth honoured by the name of Jupiter Indiges.
[ FABLE XI.]
Vertumnus, enamoured of Pomona, assumes several shapes for the purpose of gaining her favour; and having transformed himself into an old woman, succeeds in effecting his object.