Live embers snatch from hearths ablaze,
The fuel on the altars seize,
Hurl stocks and brands, and boughs of trees:
The fire-god darts from mast to keel
O’er bench, and oar, and figured deal.
With tidings of the fleet in flames,
And, looking back, the gazers spy
The smoke-clouds blackening on the sky.
Ascanius first, as o’er the mead
He leads his young array,
Spurs to the camp his fiery steed,
Nor can his guardians, blown with speed,
His headlong impulse stay:
And ‘Wretched countrywomen! whence,’
He cries, ‘this rage that robs your sense?
No Greek encampment you consume:
No; ’tis your own dear hopes ye doom.
Look! your Ascanius speaks!’ before
His feet upon the sand
He flung the helm he lately wore
While marshalling his band.
Æneas and the Trojan host
Come hurrying, hasting to the coast.
The guilty matrons, winged with dread,
Along the devious shores are fled,
Hide in the tangles of the grove,
Or huddling seek some rocky cove:
Their frenzied enterprise they rue,
And loathe the blessed light of heaven;
With sobering eyes their friends they view,
And Juno from their souls is driven.
Yet still with unabated power
The fire continues to devour:
’Twixt the soaked timbers oozes slow
Thick vapour from the smouldering tow;
The threads of pestilential flame
Steal downward through each vessel’s frame;
Nor all the efforts of the brave
Nor streaming floods avail to save.
His raiment, and his hands extends:
‘Dread Sire, if Ilium’s lorn estate
Deserve not yet thine utter hate,
If still thine ancient faithfulness
Give heed to mortals in distress,
O let the fleet escape the flame!
O save from death Troy’s dying name!
Or, if my deeds the stroke demand,
Then, Father, bare thy red right hand,
Send forth thy lightning, and o’erwhelm
The poor remainder of our realm!’
Scarce had he ended, when from high
Pours down a burst of rain,
And thunder rolling round the sky
Shakes rising ground and plain:
All heaven lets loose its watery store;
The clouds are massed, the south winds roar:
With sluicing rain the ships are drenched,
Till every spark at last is quenched,
And all the barks, save only four,
Escape the fiery conqueror.
By that too cruel blow,
In dire perplexity of thought
Alternates to and fro,
Still doubting, should he take his rest,
Unmindful of the Fates’ behest,
In Sicily, or seek once more
To compass the Italian shore.
Then Nautes, whose experienced mind
Pallas made sage beyond his kind,
Interpreting what Heaven’s dread ire
Might threaten, or the Fates require,
Breathes counsel in Æneas’ ear,
And strives his anxious soul to cheer:
‘My chief, let Fate cry on or back,
’Tis ours to follow, nothing slack:
Whate’er betide, he only cures
The stroke of Fortune who endures.
Lo here Acestes the divine,
Himself a prince of Dardan line:
Invite his counsel; bid him share
(He will not grudge) your load of care.
Give to his charge the homeless band
That erst our four lost vessels manned,
Whoe’er from high emprise recoils
And sickens to partake your toils,
Old men and wayworn dames, and all
That faints and shrinks at danger’s call;
Here let the weary set them down,
And build them a Sicilian town:
Let courtesy assert her claim,
And give the place Acestes’ name.
The counsel of his friend,
And fiercer still the dire debates
His troubled bosom rend.
Now sable night invests the sky,
When lo! descending from on high
The semblance of Anchises seemed
To give him counsel as he dreamed:
‘My son, more dear, while life remained,
E’en than that life to me,
My son, long exercised and trained
In Ilium’s destiny,
My errand is from Jove the sire,
Who saved your vessels from the fire,
And sent at last from heaven above
The wished-for tokens of his love.
Hear and obey the counsel sage
Bestowed by Nautes’ reverend age:
Picked youths, the bravest of the brave,
Be these your comrades o’er the wave,
For haughty are the tribes and rude
That Latium has to be subdued.
But ere you yet confront the foe,
First seek the halls of Dis below,
Pass deep Avernus’ vale, and meet
Your father in his own retreat.
Not Tartarus’ prison-house of crime
Detains me, nor the mournful shades:
My home is in the Elysian clime,
With righteous souls, ’mid happy glades.
The virgin Sibyl with the gore
Of sable sheep shall ope the door;
Then shall you learn your future line,
And what the walls the Fates assign.
And now farewell: dew-sprinkled Night
Has scaled Olympus’ topmost height:
I catch their panting breath from far,
The steeds of Morning’s cruel star.’
He said, and vanished out of sight,
Like thinnest smoke, and mixed with night;
While ‘Whither now?’ Æneas cries:
‘What makes thee hurry thus apace?
Whom fliest thou? what
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