But while he fills Rutulian souls with love for glorious things,
Alecto to the Teucrians wends on Stygian-fashioned wings,
With fresh guile spying out the place where goodly on the shore,
With toils and speed 'gainst woodland beasts, Iulus waged the war.
Here for his hounds Cocytus' Maid a sudden madness blent,
Crossing the nostrils of the beasts with long familiar scent,480
As eagerly they chased a hart. This first began the toil,
And kindled field-abiders' souls to war and deadly broil.
There was a hart most excellent, a noble hornèd thing,
That Tyrrheus' sons had stolen from its own dam's cherishing,
And fostered: he, their father, had the kingly herd to heed,
And well was trusted far and wide, the warden of the mead.
But to their sister Sylvia's hand the beast was used, and oft
She decked him lovingly, and wreathed his horns with leafage soft,
And combed him oft, and washed him oft in water of the well.
Tame to her hand, and used enow amid manfolk to dwell,490
He strayed the woods; but day by day betook him evermore,
Of his own will at twilight-tide, to that familiar door.
Him now Iulus' hunting hounds mad-eager chanced to stir
Afar from home, and floating whiles adown the river fair,
Or whiles on bank of grassy green beguiling summer's flame.
Therewith Ascanius, all afire with lust of noble fame,
Turned on the beast the spiky reed from out the curvèd horn;
Nor lacked the God to his right hand; on was the arrow borne
With plenteous whirr, and smote the hart through belly and through flank;
Who, wounded, to the well-known house fled fast, and groaning shrank
Into the stalls of his abode, and bloody, e'en as one501
Who cries for pity, filled the place with woefulness of moan.
Then first the sister Sylvia there, smiting her breast, cried out,
Calling to aid the hardy hearts of field-folk thereabout;
And swifter than the thought they came; for still that bitter Bane
Lurked in the silent woods: this man a half-burned brand did gain
For weapon; that a knotted stake: whate'er came first to hand,
The seeker's wrath a weapon made: there Tyrrheus cheers his band,
Come from the cleaving of an oak with foursome driven wedge,
Panting and fierce he tossed aloft the wood-bill's grinded edge.510
But she, that Evil, on the watch, noting the death anigh,
Climbs up upon the stall-house loft, and from its roof on high
Singeth the shepherd's gathering sign, and through the crookèd horn
Sends voice of hell: and e'en therewith, as forth the notes were borne,
The forest trembled; the deep woods resounded; yea afar
The mere of Trivia heard the sound, and that white water, Nar,
That bears the sulphur down its stream; the Veline well-springs heard:
Mothers caught up their little ones, and trembled sore afeard.
Then hurrying at the voice sent forth by the dread war-horn's song,
The hardy-hearted folk of fields from everywhither throng,520
With weapons caught in haste: and now the Trojan folk withal
Pour from their opened gates, and on to aid Ascanius fall.
And there the battle is arrayed; and now no war they wake,
Where field-folk strive with knotty club or fire-behardened stake;
But with the two-edged sword they strive: the meadows bristle black
With harvest of the naked steel: the gleaming brass throws back
Unto the clouds that swim aloft the smiting of the sun:
As when the whitening of the wind across the flood doth run,
And step by step the sea gets up, and higher heaps the wave,
Until heaven-high it sweeps at last up from its lowest cave.530
And here, by dint of whistling shaft in forefront of the fight,
A youth, e'en Tyrrheus' eldest son, by name of Almo hight,
Was laid alow: there in his throat the reedy bane abode,
And shut with blood the path of speech, the tender life-breath's road.
And many a body fell around: there, thrusting through the press
With peaceful word, Galæsus old died in his righteousness;
Most just of men; most rich erewhile of all Ausonian land:
Five flocks of bleaters once he had: five-fold came home to hand
His herds of neat: an hundred ploughs turned up the earth for him.539
But while they wrought these deeds of Mars mid doubtful fate and dim,
The Goddess, strong in pledge fulfilled, since she the war had stained
With very blood, and death of men in that first battle gained,
Leaveth the Westland, and upborne along the hollow sky,
To Juno such a word of pride sets forth victoriously:
"Lo thou, the discord fashioned fair with misery of fight!
Come let them join in friendship now, and troth together plight!
But now, since I have sprinkled Troy with that Ausonian blood,
I will do more, if thereunto thy will abideth good;
For all the cities neighbouring to war my word shall bring,
And in their souls the love of Mars and maddening fire shall fling550
Till all strike in, and all the lea crops of my sowing bear."
But Juno answered: "Full enough there is of fraud and fear;
Fast stands the stumbling-block of war, and hand to hand they fight:
The sword that Fate first gave to them hath man's death stained aright
Forsooth let King Latinus now and Venus' noble son
Join hand to hand, and hold high feast for such a wedding won.
But thee, the Father of the Gods, lord of Olympus high,
Will nowise have a-wandering free beneath the worldly sky:
Give place; and whatso more of toil Fortune herein may make
Myself shall rule."560
Such words as these Saturnian Juno spake,
And on the wing the Evil rose, with snaky sweeping whirr,
Seeking Cocytus' house, and left the light world's steep of air.
Midst Italy a place there is 'neath mountains high set down,
Whose noble tale in many a land hath fame and great renown,
The valley of Amsanctus called, hemmed in by woody steep
On either side, and through whose midst a rattling stream doth leap,
With clattering stones and eddying whirl: a strange den gapeth there,
The very breathing-hole of Dis; an awful place of fear,
A mighty gulf of baneful breath that Acheron hath made
When he brake forth: therein as now the baneful Fury laid570
Her hated godhead, lightening so the load of earth and heaven.
No less meanwhile did Saturn's Queen still turn her hand to leaven
That war begun. The shepherd folk rush from the battle-wrack
Into the city of the king, bearing their dead aback,
Almo the lad, Galæsus slain with changed befoulèd face.
They bid Latinus witness bear, and cry the Gods for grace.
Turnus is there, and loads the tale of bale-fire and the sword,
And swells the fear: "The land shall have a Teucrian host for lord:
With Phrygians shall ye foul your race and drive me from your door."
Then they, whose mothers midst the wood God Bacchus overbore,
To lead the dance—Amata's name being held in nowise light—581
Together draw from every side, and weary for the fight.
Yea, all with froward heart and voice cry out for war and death,
That signs of heaven forbid so sore, that high God gainsayeth,
And King Latinus' house therewith beset they eagerly;
But he unmoved against them stands as crag amid the sea;
As crag amid the sea, that stands unmoved and huge to meet
The coming crash, while plenteously the waves bark round its feet:
Vain is the roaring on the rocks and rattling shingly crash,
The wrack from off its smitten sides falls down amid the wash.590
But when no might is given him their blindness to o'ercome,
And by the road fell Juno would the matter must win home,
Sore called the father on the Gods and emptiness of air:
"Ah, broken by the Fates," he cried, "amid the storm we bear!
Ye with your godless blood yourselves shall pay the penalty,
Unhappy men! But Turnus, thou, thine ill deed bideth thee
With woe enough, and overlate the Gods shalt thou adore.
For me, my rest is gained, my foot the threshold passeth o'er;
Yet is my happy ending spilled."
Nor further would he say;
But, hedged within his house, he cast the reins of rule away.600
In Latium of the Westland world a fashion was whilome,
Thence hallowed of the Alban folk, held holy thence by Rome,
Earth's mightiest thing: and this they used what time soe'er they woke
Mars unto battle; whether they against the Getic folk,
Ind, Araby, Hyrcanian men, fashioned the woeful wrack,
Or mid the dawn from Parthian men the banners bade aback.
For twofold are the Gates of War—still bear they such a name—
Hallowed by awe of Mars the dread, and worship of his fame,
Shut by an hundred brazen bolts, and iron whose avail
Shall never die: nor ever thence doth door-ward Janus fail.610
Now when amid the Fathers' hearts fast is the war-rede grown,
The Consul, girt in Gabine wise, and with Quirinus gown
Made glorious, doth himself unbar the creaking door-leaves great,
And he himself cries on the war; whom all men follow straight,
The while their brazen yea-saying the griding trumpets blare.