And Eriphyle, hapless queen,
Still pointing to the death-wound made
By her fell son’s unbated blade.
Evadne and Pasiphæ too
Within that precinct meet the view:
Laodamia there is found,
And Cæneus, woman now, once man,
Condemned by fate’s recurrent round
To end where she began.
Sad Dido moved, the Tyrian queen,
Her death-wound bleeding yet and green.
Soon as Æneas caught the view
And through the mist her semblance knew,
Like one who spies or thinks he spies
Through flickering clouds the new moon rise,
The teardrop from his eyelids broke,
And thus in tenderest tones he spoke:
‘Ah, Dido! rightly then I read
The news that told me you were dead,
Slain by your own rash hand!
Myself the cause of your despair!
Now by the blessed stars I swear,
By heaven, by all that dead men keep
In reverence here ’mid darkness deep,
Against my will, ill-fated fair,
I parted from your land.
The Gods, at whose command to-day
Through these dim shades I take my way,
Tread the waste realm of sunless blight,
And penetrate abysmal night,
They drove me forth: nor could I know
My flight would work such cruel woe.
Stay, stay your step awhile, nor fly
So quickly from Æneas’ eye.
Whom would you shun? this brief space o’er,
Fate suffers us to meet no more.’
Thus while the briny tears run down
The hero strives to calm her frown,
Still pleading ’gainst disdain:
She on the ground averted kept
Hard eyes that neither smiled nor wept,
Nor bated more of her stern mood
Than if a monument she stood
Of firm Marpesian grain.
At length she tears her from the place,
And hies her, still with sullen face,
Into the embowering grove,
Where her first lord, Sychæus, shares
In tender interchange of cares,
And gives her love for love;
Æneas tracks her as she flies,
With bleeding heart and tearful eyes.
And now they gain the furthest meads,
The place which warriors haunt;
There sees he Tydeus, and the heir
Of the Arcadian nymph, and there
Adrastus pale and gaunt.
There Trojan ghosts in battle slain,
Whose dirge was loud in upper sky:
The chieftain knows the shadowy train,
And heaves a melancholy sigh:
Glaucus and Medon there they meet,
Antenor’s offspring, famed in war,
Thersilochus, and Polyphete
Who dwelt in Ceres’ hallowed seat,
And old Idæus, holding yet
The armour and the car.
They cluster round their ancient friend;
No single view contents their eye:
They linger and his steps attend,
And ask him how he came, and why.
But Agamemnon’s chivalry,
When gleaming through the shade
The hero and his arms they see,
Are wildered and dismayed:
Some huddle in promiscuous rout
As erst at Troy they sought the fleet:
Some feebly raise the battle-shout;
Their straining throat the thin tones flout,
Unformed and incomplete.
Deiphobus, in piteous plight,
His body gashed and torn,
His hands cut off, his comely face
Seamed o’er with wounds that mar its grace,
Ears lopped, and nostrils shorn.
Him, as he cowered, and would conceal
The ravage of the cruel steel,
The chief scarce knew: then, soon as known,
He hails him thus in friendly tone:
‘Deiphobus armipotent,
Of mighty Teucer’s high descent,
What foe has had his will so far
Your person thus to maim and mar?
Fame told me that with slaying tired
Upon the night of Troy’s last sleep,
You sank exhausted on a heap
Of Grecian carnage, and expired.
Then I upon Rhœtean ground
Upraised an empty funeral mound
And called your shade thrice o’er.
Your name, your arms the spot maintain:
Yourself, poor friend, I sought in vain,
To give you, ere I crossed the main,
A tomb on Ilium’s shore.’
‘Nay, gentle friend,’ said Priam’s son,
‘Your duty nought has left undone:
Deiphobus’s dues are paid,
And satisfied his mournful shade.
No; ’twas my fate and the foul crime
Of Sparta’s dame that plunged me here:
She bade me bear through after-time
These memories of her dalliance dear.
In what a dream of false delight
We Trojans spent our latest night
You know: nor need I idly tell
What recollection minds too well.
When the fell steed with fatal leap
Sprang o’er Troy’s wall and scaled the steep,
And brought in its impregnate womb
The armed host that wrought our doom,
An orgie dance she chose to feign,
Led through the streets a matron train,
And from the turret, torch in hand,
Gave signal to the Grecian band.
I, wearied out, had laid my head
On our unhappy bridal bed,
Sunk in a lethargy of sleep,
Most like to death, so calm, so deep.
Meantime my virtuous wife removed
All weapons from the house away;
My sword, so oft in need approved,
She took from where the bolster lay:
Then opes the palace-door, and calls
Her former lord within the walls,
Thinking, forsooth, so fair a prize
Would blind a dazzled lover’s eyes,
And patriot zeal might thus efface
The memory of her old disgrace.
Why lengthen out the tale? they burst
The chamber- door, that twain accurst,
Æolides his comrade, still
The ready counsellor of ill.
Ye gods, to Greece the like repay,
If pious are these lips that pray!
But you, what chance, I fain would know,
Has led you living down
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