Meanwhile is opened wide the door of dread Olympus' walls,
And there the Sire of Gods and Men unto the council calls,
Amid the starry place, wherefrom, high-throned, he looks adown
Upon the folk of Latin land and that beleaguered town.
There in the open house they sit, and he himself begins:
"O Dwellers in the House of Heaven, why backward thuswise wins
Your purpose? Why, with hearts unruled, raise ye the strife so sore?
I clean forbade that Italy should clash with Troy in war.
Now why the war that I forbade? who egged on these or those
To fear or fight, or drave them on with edge of sword to close?10
Be not o'ereager in your haste: the hour of fight shall come,
When dreadful Carthage on a day against the walls of Rome,
Betwixt the opened doors of Alps, a mighty wrack shall send;
Then may ye battle, hate to hate, and reach and grasp and rend:
But now forbear, and joyfully knit fast the plighted peace."
Few words spake Jove; but not a few in answer unto these
Gave golden Venus back again:
"O Father, O eternal might of men and deeds of earth—
For what else may be left to me whereto to turn my prayers?—
Thou seest the Rutuli in pride, and Turnus, how he fares?20
Amidst them, borne aloft by steeds, and, swelling, war-way sweeps
With Mars to aid: the fencèd place no more the Teucrians keeps,
For now within the very gates and mound-heaped battlement
They blend in fight, and flood of gore adown the ditch is sent,
Unware Æneas is away.—Must they be never free
From bond of leaguer? lo, again the threatening enemy
Hangs over Troy new-born! Behold new host arrayed again
From Arpi, the Ætolian-built; against the Teucrian men
Tydides riseth. So for me belike new wounds in store,
And I, thy child, must feel the edge of arms of mortal war.30
Now if without thy peace, without thy Godhead's will to speed,
The Trojans sought for Italy, let ill-hap pay ill deed,
Nor stay them with thine help: but if they followed many a word
Given forth by Gods of Heaven and Hell, by whom canst thou be stirred
To turn thy doom, or who to forge new fate may e'er avail?
Of ship-host burnt on Eryx shore why should I tell the tale?
Or of the king of wind and storm, or wild and windy crowd
Æolia bred, or Iris sent adown the space of cloud?
But now withal the Gods of Hell, a world untried before,
She stirreth, and Alecto sent up to the earthly shore40
In sudden hurry raves about towns of Italian men.
No whit for lordship do I yearn: I hoped such glories then
While Fortune was: let them be lords whom thou wilt doom for lords!
But if no land thy hard-heart wife to Teucrian men awards,
Yet, Father, by the smoking wrack of overwhelmèd Troy
I pray thee from the weapon-dint safe let me send a boy,
Yea, e'en Ascanius: let me keep my grandson safe for me!
Yea, let Æneas toss about on many an unknown sea,
And let him follow wheresoe'er his fortune shall have led:
But this one let me shield, and take safe from the battle's dread.50
Paphus, Cythera, Amathus, are mine, and I abide
Within Idalia's house: let him lay weed of war aside,
And wear his life inglorious there: then shalt thou bid the hand
Of Carthage weigh Ausonia down, and nothing shall withstand
The towns of Tyre.—Ah, what availed to 'scape the bane of war?
Ah, what availed that through the midst of Argive flames they bore
To wear down perils of wide lands, and perils of the main,
While Teucrian men sought Latin land and Troy new-born again?
Ah, better had it been for them by Troy's cold ash to stay,
To dwell on earth where Troy hath been. Father, give back, I pray,60
Their Xanthus and their Simoïs unto that wretched folk,
And let them toil and faint once more 'neath Ilium's woeful yoke!"
Then spake Queen Juno, heavy wroth: "Why driv'st thou me to part
My deep-set silence, and lay bare with words my grief of heart?
What one of all the Gods or men Æneas drave to go
On warring ways, or bear himself as King Latinus' foe?
Fate-bidden he sought Italy?—Yea, soothly, or maybe
Spurned by Cassandra's wilderment—and how then counselled we
To leave his camp and give his life to make the winds a toy?
To trust his walls and utmost point of war unto a boy?70
To trust the Tuscan faith, and stir the peaceful folk to fight?
What God hath driven him to lie, what hardness of my might?
Works Juno here, or Iris sent adown the cloudy way?
'Tis wrong for Italy, forsooth, the ring of fire to lay
Round Troy new-born; for Turnus still to hold his fathers' earth!—
Though him, Pilumnus' own son's son, Venilia brought to birth—
But what if Trojans fall with flame upon the Latin folk,
And drive the prey from off their fields oppressed by outland yoke?
Or choose them sons-in-law, or brides from mothers' bosoms tear?
Or, holding peace within their hands, lade ships with weapon-gear?80
Thou erst hadst might from Greekish hands Æneas' self to draw,
To thrust a cloud and empty wind in stead of man of war,
And unto sea-nymphs ship by ship the ship-host mayst thou change.
But we to help the Rutuli, 'tis horrible and strange!
—Unware Æneas is away?—let him abide unware!
Paphus thou hast, Idalium, and high Cythera fair,
Then why with cities big with war and hearts of warriors deal?
What! we it was who strove to wrack the fainting Trojan weal?
We!—or the one who thwart the Greeks the wretched Trojans dashed?
Yea, and what brought it all about that thus in arms they clashed,90
Europe and Asia? that men brake the plighted peace by theft?
Did I the Dardan lecher lead, who Sparta's jewel reft?
Did I set weapons in his hand, breed lust to breed debate?
Then had thy care for thine been meet, but now indeed o'erlate
With wrongful plaint thou risest up, and bickerest emptily."
So pleaded Juno, and all they, the heavenly folk anigh,
Murmured their doom in diverse wise; as when the first of wind
Caught in the woods is murmuring on, and rolleth moanings blind,
Betraying to the mariners the onset of the gale.
Then spake the Almighty Sire, in whom is all the world's avail,100
And as he spake the high-built house of God was quieted,
And earth from her foundations shook, and heaven was hushed o'erhead,
The winds fell down, the face of sea was laid in quiet fair:
"Take ye these matters to your hearts, and set my sayings there;
Since nowise the Ausonian folk the plighted troth may blend
With Teucrians, and your contest seems a strife without an end;
What fortune each may have today, what hope each one shears out,
Trojan or Rutulan, will I hold all in balanced doubt,
Whether the camp be so beset by fate of Italy,
Or hapless wanderings of Troy, and warnings dealt awry.110
Nor loose I Rutulans the more; let each one's way-faring
Bear its own hap and toil, for Jove to all alike is king;
The Fates will find a way to wend."
He nodded oath withal
By his own Stygian brother's stream, the pitchy waters' fall,
And blazing banks, and with his nod shook all Olympus' land.
Then fell the talk; from golden throne did Jupiter upstand,
The heaven-abiders girt him round and brought him to the door.
The Rutuli amid all this are pressing on in war,
Round all the gates to slay the men, the walls with fire to ring,
And all Æneas' host is pent with fenced beleaguering.120
Nor is there any hope of flight; upon the towers tall
They stand, the hapless men in vain, thin garland for the wall;
Asius, the son of Imbrasus, Thymœtes, and the two
Assaraci, and Thymbris old, with Castor, deeds they do
In the forefront; Sarpedon's sons, twin brethren, with them bide,
Clarus and Themon, born erewhile in lofty Lycia's side.
And now Lyrnessian Acmon huge with strain of limbs strives hard,
And raises up a mighty stone, no little mountain shard;
As great as father Clytius he, or brother Mnestheus' might:129
So some with stones, with spear-cast some, they ward the walls in fight,
They deal with fire or notch the shaft upon the strainèd string.
But lo amidst, most meetly wrought for Venus cherishing,
His goodly head the Dardan boy unhooded there doth hold,
As shineth out some stone of price, cleaving the yellow gold,
Fair for the bosom or the head; or as the ivory shines,
That with Orician terebinth the art of man entwines,
Or mid the boxwood; down along his milk-white neck they lie
The streams of hair, which golden wire doth catch about and tie.
The mighty nations, Ismarus, there saw thee deft to speed
The bane of men, envenoming the deadly flying reed;140
Thou lord-born of Mœonian house, whereby the tiller tills
Rich acres, where Pactolus' flood gold overflowing spills.
There, too, was Mnestheus, whom his deed late done of thrusting forth
King Turnus from the battlements hath raised to heavenly worth,
And Capys, he whose name is set upon Campania's town.
But while the bitter play of war went bickering up and down,
Æneas clave the seas with keel amidst the dead of night:
For when Evander he had left and reached the Tuscan might,
He met their king and told his name, and whence his race of old,
And what he would and how he wrought: and of the host he told,150
Mezentius now had gotten him, and Turnus' wrothful heart;
He warned him in affairs of men to trust not Fortune's part;
And therewithal he mingleth prayers: Tarchon no while doth wait,
But joineth hosts and plighteth troth; and so, set free by Fate,
A-shipboard go the Lydian folk by God's command and grace,
Yet 'neath the hand of outland duke: Æneas' ship hath place
In forefront: Phrygian lions hang above its armèd tyne
O'ertopped by Ida, unto those Troy's outcasts happy sign:
There great Æneas sits, and sends his mind a-wandering wide
Through all the shifting chance of war; and by his left-hand side160
Is Pallas asking of the stars and night-tide's journey dim,
Or whiles of haps by land or sea that fortuned unto him.
Ye Goddesses, ope Helicon, and raise the song to say
What host from out the Tuscan land Æneas led away,
And how they dight their ships, and how across the sea they drave.
In brazen Tiger Massicus first man the sea-plain clave;
A thousand youths beneath him are that Clusium's walls have left
And Cosæ's city: these in war with arrow-shot are deft,
And bear light quivers of the bark, and bear the deadly bow.