In heart a Trojan, as in blood.
Give leave to draw our ships ashore,
There smooth the plank and shape the oar:
So, should our friends, our king survive,
For Italy we yet may strive:
But if our hopes are quenched, and thee,
Best father of the sons of Troy,
Death hides beneath the Libyan sea,
Nor spares to us thy princely boy,
Yet may we seek Sicania’s land,
Her mansions ready to our hand,
And dwell where we were guests so late,
The subjects of Acestes’ state.’
So spoke Ilioneus: and the rest
With shouts their loud assent expressed.
‘Discharge you, Trojans, of your dread:
An infant realm and fortune hard
Compel me thus my shores to guard.
Who knows not of Æneas’ name,
Of Troy, her fortune and her fame,
And that devouring war?
Our Punic breasts have more of fire,
Nor all so retrograde from Tyre
Doth Phœbus yoke his car.
Whate’er your choice, the Hesperian plain,
Or Eryx and Acestes’ reign,
My arms shall guard you in your way,
My treasuries your needs purvey.
Or would a home on Libya’s shores
Allure you more? this town is yours:
Lay up your vessels: Tyre and Troy
Alike shall Dido’s thoughts employ.
And would we had your monarch too,
Driven hither by the blast, like you,
The great Æneas! I will send
And search the coast from end to end,
If haply, wandering up and down,
He bide in woodland or in town.’
Achates and the chief of Troy
Were yearning long the cloud to burst:
And thus Achates spoke the first:
‘What now, my chief, the thoughts that rise
Within you? see, before your eyes
Your fleet, your friends restored;
Save one, who sank beneath the tide
E’en in our presence: all beside
Confirms your mother’s word.’
And purges brightening into day;
Æneas stood, to sight confest,
A very God in face and chest:
For Venus round her darling’s head
A length of clustering locks had spread,
Crowned him with youth’s purpureal light,
And made his eyes gleam glad and bright:
Such loveliness the hands of art
To ivory’s native hues impart:
So ’mid the gold around it placed
Shines silver pale or marble chaste.
Then in a moment, unforeseen
Of all, he thus bespeaks the queen:
‘Lo, him you ask for! I am he,
Æneas, saved from Libya’s sea.
O, only heart that deigns to mourn
For Ilium’s cruel care!
That bids e’en us, poor relics, torn
From Danaan fury, all outworn
By earth and ocean, all forlorn,
Its home, its city share!
We cannot thank you; no, nor they,
Our brethren of the Dardan race,
Who, driven from their ancestral place,
Throughout the wide world stray.
May Heaven, if virtue claim its thought,
If justice yet avail for aught,
Heaven, and the sense of conscious right,
With worthier meed your acts requite!
What happy ages gave you birth?
What glorious sires begat such worth?
While rivers run into the deep,
While shadows o’er the hillside sweep,
While stars in heaven’s fair pasture graze,
Shall live your honour, name, and praise,
Whate’er my destined home.’ He ends,
And turns him to his Trojan friends;
Ilioneus with his right hand greets,
And with the left Serestus meets;
Then to the rest like welcome gave,
Brave Gyas and Cloanthus brave.
His sorrow next, entranced the queen,
And ‘Say,’ cries she, ‘what cruel wrong
Pursued you, goddess-born, so long?
What violence has your navy driven
On this rude coast, of all ’neath heaven?
And are you he, on Simois’ shore
Whom Venus to Anchises bore,
Æneas? Well I mind the name,
Since Teucer first to Sidon came,
Driven from his home, in hope to gain
By Belus’ aid another reign,
What time my father ruled the land
Of Cyprus with a conqueror’s hand.
Then first the fall of Troy I knew,
And heard of Grecia’s kings, and you.
Oft, I remember, would he glow
In praise of Troy, albeit her foe;
Oft would he boast, with generous pride,
Himself to Troy’s old line allied.
Then enter, chiefs, these friendly doors;
I too have had my fate, like yours,
Which, many a suffering overpast,
Has willed to fix me here at last.
Myself not ignorant of woe,
Compassion I have learned to show.’
She speaks, and speaking leads the way
To where her palace stands,
And through the fanes a solemn day
Of sacrifice commands.
Nor yet unmindful of his friends,
Her bounty to the shore she sends,
A hundred bristly swine,
A herd of twenty beeves, of lambs
A hundred, with their fleecy dams,
And spirit-cheering wine.
With all the state that kings display,
And through the central breadth of hall
Prepare the sumptuous festival:
There, wrought with many a fair design,
Rich coverlets of purple shine:
Bright
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