The man of Troy, while others' hearts amazed and fearful hang,530
Knoweth the sound, the promised help, his Goddess-mother's meed.
He saith: "Yea, verily, O host, to ask is little need
What hap this portent draweth on: the Gods will have me wend;
The God that made me promised erst such heavenly signs to send
If war were toward; and through the sky she promised to bear down
Arms Vulcan-fashioned for my need.
Woe's me for poor Laurentium's folk! what death, what bloody graves!
—Ah, Turnus, thou shalt pay it me!—how many 'neath thy waves,
O Father Tiber, shalt thou roll the shields and helms of men,
And bodies of the mighty ones! Cry war, oath-breakers, then!"540
And as he spake the word he rose from off the lofty throne,
And the slaked fire of Hercules roused on the altar-stone;
And joyfully he drew anear the God of yesterday
And little House-Gods: chosen ewes in manner due they slay,
Evander and the youth of Troy together side by side.
Then to the ships they wend their ways, where yet their fellows bide:
There men to follow him in fight he chooseth from the peers,
The flower of hardy hearts; the rest the downlong water bears;
Deedless they swim adown the stream, Ascanius home to bring
The tidings of his coming sire and matters flourishing.550
But horses get such Teucrian men as are for Tyrrhene mead;
By lot they choose Æneas one which yellow lion's weed
Goes all about; full fair it shone, for it was golden-clawed.
Then sudden through the little town the rumour flies abroad,
That knights will speedily ride forth to Tyrrhene kingly stead.
Then fear redoubleth mothers' prayers, and nigher draweth dread
In peril's hand, and greater still the face of Mars doth grow.
Father Evander strains the hand of him that needs must go,
Clinging with tears insatiate, and such a word doth say:
"O me! would Jove bring back again the years long worn away!560
Were I as when the foremost foes upon Præneste's field
I felled, and burnt victoriously a heap of shield on shield:
When with this very hand I sent King Herilus to Hell,
Whose dam, Feronia, at his birth,—wild is the tale to tell,—
Had given him gift of threefold life; three times the sword to shake,
And thrice to fall upon the field: yet did this right hand take
That threefold life away from him, thrice spoiled him of his gear.
O were I such, ne'er would I break from thine embracing dear,
O son; nor had Mezentius erst, the tyrant neighbour lord,
In my despite so many deaths wrought with his cruel sword,570
Nor widowed this our city here of such a host of sons.
But ye, O Gods!—thou Mightiest, King of all heavenly ones,
O Jove, have pity now, I pray, upon the Arcadian King,
And hear a father's prayers! for if your mighty governing,—
If Fate shall keep my Pallas safe, and I may live to see
His face again,—if he return to keep our unity,
Then may I live, and any toil, such as ye will, abide!
But, Fortune, if thou threatenest ill, and misery betide,
Then let me now, yea, now indeed, the cruel life break through,
While yet my fear is unfulfilled and hope may yet come true;580
While thee, belovèd joy of eld, I wrap mine arms around,
Ere yet the tale of evil hap mine ancient ears may wound."
Thus at their last departing-tide the father poured the prayer,
Whom, fainting now, the serving-men back within doors must bear;
While forth from out the open gate the host of horsemen ride,
Æneas and Achates leal in forefront of their pride,
And then the other Trojan lords: amidst the company,
In cloak adorned and painted arms, was Pallas fair to see:
E'en such as Lucifer, when he bathed in the ocean stream,
The light beloved of Venus well o'er every starry beam,590
Hath raised his holy head in heaven and down the darkness rent.
The fearful mothers on the walls their eyen after sent,
Following the dusty cloud of them and ranks of glittering brass.
But mid the thicket places there by nighest road they pass
Unto their end in weed of war: with shout and serried band
The clattering hooves of four-foot things shake down the dusty land.
There is a mighty thicket-place by chilly Cæres' side,
By ancient dread of fathers gone held holy far and wide:
A place that hollow hills shut in and pine-wood black begirds.
Men say that to Silvanus erst, the God of fields and herds,600
The old Pelasgi hallowed it, and made a holy day,
E'en those who in the time agone on Latin marches lay.
No great way hence the Tuscan folk and Tarcho held them still
In guarded camp; the host of them from rising of a hill
Might now be seen, as far and wide they spread about the field.
Father Æneas and his folk, the mighty under shield,
Speed hither, and forewearied now their steeds and bodies tend.
But through the clouds of heavenly way doth fair white Venus wend,
Bearing the gift; who when she saw in hidden valley there
Her son afar, apart from men by river cool and fair,610
Then kind she came before his eyes, and in such words she spake:
"These promised gifts, my husband's work, O son, I bid thee take:
So shalt thou be all void of doubt, O son, when presently
Laurentines proud and Turnus fierce thou bidst the battle try."
So spake the Cytherean one and sought her son's embrace,
And hung the beaming arms upon an oak that stood in face.
But he, made glad by godhead's gift, and such a glory great,
Marvelleth and rolleth o'er it all his eyes insatiate,
And turns the pieces o'er and o'er his hands and arms between;
The helm that flasheth flames abroad with crest so dread beseen:620
The sword to do the deeds of Fate; the hard-wrought plates of brass,
Blood-red and huge; yea, e'en as when the bright sun brings to pass
Its burning through the coal-blue clouds and shines o'er field and fold:
The light greaves forged and forged again of silver-blend and gold:
The spear, and, thing most hard to tell, the plating of the shield.
For there the tale of Italy and Roman joy afield
That Master of the Fire had wrought, not unlearned of the seers,
Or blind to see the days before. The men of coming years,
Ascanius stem, all foughten fields, were wrought in due array.
In the green den of Mavors there the fostering she-wolf lay,630
The twin lads sporting round the beast, clung to her udders there,
And sucked the nursing mother-wolf, and nothing knew of fear;
But she, with lithe neck turned about, now this now that caressed,
And either body with her tongue for hardy shaping pressed.
Rome had he done anigh thereto and Sabine maidens caught
From concourse of the hollow seats when roundway games were wrought
There for the sons of Romulus the sudden war upstarts
With Tatius, the old king of days, and Cures' hardy hearts.
Then those two kings, the battle quenched, yet clad in battle-gear,
Stand with the bowl in hand before the fire of Jupiter,640
As each to each o'er slaughtered sow the troth of peace they plight.
Anigh is Metius piecemeal dragged by foursome chariots light.
—Ah, Alban, by the troth of words 'twere better to abide!—
There Tullus strews his lying flesh about the thicket wide,
Nor sprinkling of a traitor's blood the bramble-bushes lack.
There was Porsena bidding men take outcast Tarquin back,
The while his mighty leaguer lay about the city's weal.
For freedom there Æneas' sons were rushing on the steel:
As full of wrath, as one who threats, might ye behold his frown,
Because that Cocles was of heart to break the bridge adown;650
And Clœlia from her bursten bonds was swimming o'er the flood.