THE LATINS SEEK HELP OF DIOMEDE, AND ÆNEAS OF EVANDER, TO WHOM HE GOETH AS A GUEST. VENUS CAUSETH VULCAN TO FORGE ARMOUR AND WEAPONS FOR HER SON ÆNEAS.
When Turnus from Laurentum's burg the battle-sign upreared,
When with their voices hard and shrill the gathering trumpets blare,
When he had stirred his war-steeds on and clashed his weed of war,
All troubled were the minds of men, and midst of tumult sore
All Latium swore the battle oath, and rage of men outbroke;
Messapus then, and Ufens great, the dukes of warring folk,
Mezentius, scorner of the Gods, these drive from every side
The folk to war, and waste the fields of tillers far and wide.
And Venulus is sent withal to Diomedes' town
To pray for aid, and tell him how the Teucrians are come down10
On Latium: how Æneas comes with ship-host, carrying
His vanquished House-Gods, calling him the Fate-ordainèd King;
How many a folk of Italy hath joined the Dardan lord,
How that his name in Latin land is grown a mighty word—
What thing the man will build from this, what way the prize of fight,
If Fortune aid him he shall turn—through this thou see'st more light
Than cometh to King Turnus yet or King Latinus eyes.
So goes the world in Latium now, and noting how all lies,
The Trojan hero drifts adown a mighty tide of care,
And hither now his swift thought speeds, now thither bids it fare,20
And sends it diversely about by every way to slip:
As quivering light of water is in brazen vessel's lip,
Smit by the sun, or casting back the image of the moon.
It flitteth all about the place, and rising upward soon
Smiteth the fashioned ceiling spread beneath the tiling steep.
Night fell, and over all the world the earthly slumber deep
Held weary things, the fowl of air, the cattle of the wold,
And on the bank beneath the crown of heaven waxen cold,
Father Æneas, all his heart with woeful war oppressed,
Lay stretched along and gave his limbs the tardy meed of rest:30
When lo, between the poplar-leaves the godhead of the place,
E'en Tiber of the lovely stream, arose before his face,
A veil of linen grey and thin the elder's body clad,
And garlanding of shady sedge the tresses of him had;
And thus Æneas he bespeaks to take away his woe:
"O Seed of Gods, who bearest us Troy-town from midst the foe,
Who savest Pergamus new-born no more to die again,
Long looked-for on Laurentine earth and fields of Latin men;
This is your sure abiding-place, your House-Gods' very stead;
Turn not, nor fear the battle-threats, for now hath fallen dead40
The swelling storm of godhead's wrath.
And lest thou think I forge for thee an idle dream of sleep,
Amid the holm-oaks of the shore a great sow shalt thou see,
Who e'en now farrowed thirty head of young; there lieth she
All white along, with piglings white around her uddered sides:
That earth shall be thy dwelling-place; there rest from toil abides.
From thence Ascanius, when the year hath thrice ten times rolled round,
Shall raise a city, calling it by Alba's name renowned.
No doubtful matters do I sing,—but how to speed thee well,
And win thee victor from all this, in few words will I tell:50
Arcadian people while agone, a folk from Pallas come,
Following Evander for their king, have borne his banners home,
And chosen earth, and reared their town amid a mountain place
E'en Pallanteum named, from him who first began their race:
This folk against the Latin men for ever wages fight,
Bid them as fellows to thy camp, and treaty with them plight;
But I by bank and flow of flood will straightly lead thee there,
While thou with beating of the oars the stream dost overbear.
Arise, arise, O Goddess-born, when the first star-world sets,
Make prayer to Juno in due wise; o'ercome her wrath and threats60
With suppliant vows: victorious grown, thou yet shalt worship me;
For I am that abundant flood whom thou today dost see
Sweeping the bank and cleaving way amid the plenteous earth,
Blue Tiber, sweetest unto heaven of all the streams of worth.
This is my mighty house; my head from lofty cities sweeps."
The River spake, and hid himself amid the watery deeps;
But night and slumber therewithal Æneas' eyes forsook;
He rose and toward the dawning-place and lights of heaven 'gan look,
And duly in his hollow hand he lifted water fair69
From out the stream, and unto heaven in such wise poured his prayer:
"O Nymphs, Laurentian Nymphs, from whence the race of rivers springs,
And thou, O father Tiber fair, with holy wanderings,
Cherish Æneas; thrust from me the bitter following bane,
What pool soe'er may nurse thy spring, O pityer of my pain,
From whatso land, O loveliest, thy stream may issue forth.
For ever will I give thee gifts, and worship well thy worth,
Horned river, of all Westland streams the very king and lord;
Only be with me; faster bind thy great God-uttered word."
Thus having said, two twi-banked keels he chooseth from the fleet,
And mans the oars and dights his folk with gear and weapons meet.80
But lo meanwhile a wondrous sign is thrust before his eyes;
For on the green-sward of the wood a snow-white sow there lies
Down by the strand, her little ones, like-hued, about her pressed;
Whom god-loving Æneas slays to thee, O mightiest,
O Juno, at thine altar-fires hallowing both dam and brood.
Now while the long night wore away, the swelling of his flood
Had Tiber soothed, and eddying back in peace the stream was stayed,
And in the manner of a mere the water's face was laid,
Or as a pool, that so the oars unstrained their work may ply.
So now they speed their journey forth amid a happy cry;90
The oiled fir slips along the seas, the waves fall wondering then,—
The woods, unused, fall wondering sore to see the shields of men
Shine far up stream; to see the keels bepainted swimming there:
But day and night, with beat of oars, the watery way they wear,
And conquer reaches long, o'erlaid with many a shifting tree,
And cleave the forest fair and green along the waveless sea.