Unto the midmost crown of heaven had climbed the fiery sun,
By then the walls, and far-off burg, and few roofs one by one
They see; the place raised high as heaven by mightiness of Rome,
Where in those days Evander had an unrich, scanty home:100
So thither swift they turned their prows, and toward the city drew.
That day it chanced the Arcadian King did yearly honour do
Unto Amphitryon's mighty son, and on the God did call
In grove before the city-walls: Pallas, his son, withal,
The battle-lords, the senate poor of that unwealthy folk
Cast incense there; with yet warm blood the altars were a-smoke.
But when they saw the tall ships glide amidst the dusky shade
Of woody banks, and might of men on oars all silent laid,
Scared at the sudden sight they rise, and all the boards forsake:
But Pallas, of the hardy heart, forbids the feast to break,110
While he, with weapon caught in haste, flies forth to meet the men,
And crieth from a mound afar:
"Fellows, what drave you then?
And whither wend ye on your ways by road untried before?
What folk and from what home are ye? and is it peace or war?"
Then spake the father Æneas the lofty deck aboard,
As with the peaceful olive-bough he reached his hand abroad;
"Troy's folk ye see and weapons whet against the Latin side,
Whom they have driven forth by war amid their plenteous pride.
We seek Evander: go ye forth and tell him this, and say
That chosen dukes of Troy are come for plighted troth to pray."120
The sound of such a mighty name smote Pallas with amaze:
"Come forth," he said, "whoso ye be: before my father's face
Say what ye would; come to our Gods and in our house be guest."
So saying he gave his hand to him, and hard his right hand pressed;
Therewith they leave the river-bank, and wend amidst the wood:
But spake Æneas to the king fair friendly words and good:
"O best of Greeks, whom fortune wills that I should now beseech,
And unto thee the suppliant staff of olive garlands reach,
I feared thee not for Arcas' seed or Duke of Danai,
Nor for thy being to Atreus' twins a kinsman born anigh:130
Rather my heart, and holy words that Gods have given forth,
Our fathers' kin, the world-wide tale that goeth of thy worth,
Bind me to thee, and make me fain of what Fate bids befall.
Now Dardanus, first setter-up and sire of Ilian wall,
Born of Electra, Atlas' child, as Greekish stories say,
Came to the Teucrians: Atlas huge Electra gave today,
Atlas, who on his shoulders rears the round-wrought heavenly house:
But Mercury thy father is, whom Maia glorious
Conceived, and shed on earth one day on high Cyllene cold;
But Atlas Maia too begot, if we may trow tale told,140
That very Atlas who the stars of heavenly house doth raise,
So from one root the race of us wends on its twofold ways.
Stayed by these things none else I sent, nor guilefully have sought,
Assaying of thee, but myself unto thyself I brought,
And mine own head; and here I stand a suppliant at thy door.
And that same Daunian folk of men drive us with bitter war
As fall on thee: if us they chase, what stay but utterly,
(So deem they) all the Westland earth beneath their yoke shall lie,
With all the upper flood of sea, and nether waters' wash.
Take troth and give it: hearts are we stout in the battle's clash,150
High-counselled souls, men well beheld in deeds that try the man."
He ended: but Evander's look this long while overran
His face, his speaking eyes, and all his body fair to see;
Then in few words he answered thus:
"How sweet to welcome thee,
Best heart of Troy! and how I mind the words, and seem to hear
Anchises' voice, and see the face that mighty man did bear:
For I remember Priam erst, child of Laomedon,
Came to Hesione's abode, to Salamis passed on,
And thence would wend his ways to seek Arcadia's chilly place.
The blossom of the spring of life then bloomed upon my face,160
When on the Teucrian lords I looked with joy and wonderment;
On Priam, too: but loftier there than any other went
Anchises; and his sight in me struck youthful love awake.
I yearned to speak unto the man, and hand in hand to take:
So fain I met him, led him in to Phineus' wallèd place;
And he, departing, gave to me a noble arrow-case
And Lycian shafts; a cloak thereto, all shot across with gold,
And golden bridles twain, that now Pallas, my son, doth hold.
Lo, then, the right hand that ye sought is joined in troth to thine;
And when tomorrow's light once more upon the world shall shine,170
Glad, holpen, shall I send you forth and stay you with my store.
Meanwhile, since here ye come our friends, with us the Gods adore
At this our hallowed yearly feast, which ill it were to stay:
Be kind, and with your fellows' boards make friends without delay."
Therewith he bids bring forth once more the wine-cups and the meat,
And he himself sets down the men upon a grassy seat;
But chiefly to the bed bedight with shaggy lion's skin
He draws Æneas, bidding him the throne of maple win.
Then vie the chosen youth-at-arms, the altar-priest brings aid;
They bear in roasted flesh of bulls, and high the baskets lade180
With gifts of Ceres fashioned well, and serve the Bacchus' joy;
So therewithal Æneas eats and men-at-arms of Troy
Of undivided oxen chines and inwards of the feast.
But when the lust of meat was dulled and hunger's gnawing ceased,
Saith King Evander:
"This high-tide that we are holding thus,
This ordered feast, this altar raised to God all-glorious,
No idle task of witch-work is, that knoweth not the Gods
Of ancient days: O Trojan chief, we, saved from fearful odds,
Here worship, and give glory new to deeds done gloriously.
Note first the crag, whose world of stones o'ertoppleth there anigh;190
What stone-heaps have been cast afar, how waste and wild is grown
The mountain-house, what mighty wrack the rocks have dragged adown.
Therein a cave was erst, that back a long way burrowing ran,
Held by the dreadful thing, the shape of Cacus, monster-man.
A place the sun might never see, for ever warm and wet
With reek of murder newly wrought; o'er whose proud doorways set
The heads of men were hanging still wan mid the woeful gore.
Vulcan was father of this fiend; his black flame did he pour
Forth from his mouth, as monster-great he wended on his ways.
But to our aid, as whiles it will, brought round the lapse of days200
The help and coming of a God: for that most mighty one,
All glorious with the death and spoils of threefold Geryon,
Alcides, our avenger came, driving the victor's meed,
His mighty bulls, who down the dale and river-bank did feed.
But Cacus, mad with furious heart, that nought undared might be
Of evil deeds, or nought untried of guile and treachery,
Drave from the fold four head of bulls of bodies excellent,
And e'en so many lovely kine, whose fashion all outwent;
Which same, that of their rightful road the footprints clean might lack,
Tail-foremost dragged he to his den, turning their way-marks back;210
And so he hid them all away amid that stonydark,
Nor toward the cave might he that sought find any four-foot mark.
"Meanwhile, his beasts all satiate, from fold Amphitryon's son
Now gets them ready for the road, and busks him to be gone;
When lo, the herd falls bellowing, and with its sorrow fills
The woodland as it goes away, and lowing leaves the hills.
Therewith a cow gave back the sound, and in the cavern hid
Lowed out, and in despite his heed all Cacus' hope undid.
Then verily Alcides' ire and gall of heart outbroke
In fury, and his arms he caught and weight of knotty oak,220
And running, sought the hill aloft that thrusteth toward the skies.
Then first our folk saw Cacus scared and trouble in his eyes,
And in a twinkling did he flee, no eastern wind as fleet,
Seeking his den, and very fear gave wings unto his feet;
But scarcely was he shut therein, and, breaking down the chains,
Had dropped the monstrous rock that erst his crafty father's pains
Hung there with iron; scarce had he blocked the doorway with the same,
When lo, the man of Tiryns there, who with his heart aflame
Eyed all the entries, here and there turning about his face,
Gnashing his teeth: afire with wrath, thrice all that hilly place230
Of Aventine he eyeth o'er, thrice tries without avail
The rocky door, thrice sits him down awearied in the dale.
"There was a peakèd rock of flint with ragged edges dight,
Which at the cave's back rose aloft exceeding high to sight,
A dwelling meet for evil fowl amidst their nests to bide;
This, that hung o'er the brow above the river's leftward side,
Hard from the right he beareth on, and shakes, and from its roots
Wrencheth it loose, and suddenly adown the bent side shoots.
Then ringeth all the mighty heaven with thunder of its wrack,
The banks are rent, the frighted stream its waters casteth back;240
But Cacus' den and kingly house showed all uncovered there,
The inmost of the shadowy cave was laid undoored and bare:
As if the inner parts of earth 'neath mighty stroke should gape,
Unlocking all the house of hell, showing that country's shape,
The wan land all forlorn of God: there shows the unmeasured pit,
And ghosts aquake with light of day shot through the depths of it.