Your mind takes note, your tongue can tell:
The far-off whisper of the years
Scarce reaches our bewildered ears.
Who mocks at heaven, arrays his host,
And braves the battle’s storm:
His son, young Lausus, at his side,
Excelled by none in beauty’s pride,
Save Turnus’ comely form:
Lausus, the tamer of the steed,
The conqueror of the silvan breed,
Leads from Agylla’s towers in vain
A thousand youths, a valiant train:
Ah happy, had the son been blest
In hearkening to his sire’s behest,
Or had the sire from whom he came
Had other nature, other name!
Fair Aventinus, princely heir
Of Hercules the brave and fair,
And for his proud escutcheon takes
His father’s Hydra and her snakes.
’Twas he that priestess Rhea bare,
A stealthy birth, to upper air,
’Mid shades of woody Aventine
Mingling her own with heavenly blood,
When triumph-flushed from Geryon slain
Alcides touched the Latian plain,
And bathed Iberia’s distant kine
In Tuscan Tiber’s flood.
Long pikes and poles his bands uprear,
The shapely blade, the Sabine spear.
Himself on foot, with lion’s skin,
Whose long white teeth with ghastly grin
Clasp like a helmet brow and chin,
Joins the proud chiefs in rude attire,
And flaunts the emblem of his sire.
The town that bears Tiburtus’ name,
Bold Coras and Catillus strong:
Through thick-rained darts they storm along,
The foremost in the fray:
As when two cloud-born Centaurs leap
Down Homole or Othrys’ steep,
The forest parts before their sweep,
And crashing trees give way.
The founder of Præneste’s tower,
Brave Cæculus, by all renowned
As Vulcan’s son, ’mid embers found
And monarch of the rustics crowned.
Beneath him march his rural train,
Whom high Præneste’s walls contain,
Who dwell in Gabian Juno’s plain,
Whose haunt is Anio’s chilly flood
And Hernic rocks, by streams bedewed,
Who till Anagnia’s bosom green
Or drink of father Amasene.
Not all are furnished for the war
With ample shield or sounding car.
Some sling lead bullets o’er the field,
Some javelins twain in combat wield.
A cap of fur protects their head
By spoil of tawny wolf supplied;
Their left foot bare, on earth they tread;
The right is cased in raw bull-hide.
The Ocean-monarch’s mighty seed,
Whom none might harm, so willed his sire,
With force of iron or of fire,
Awakes his people’s slumbering zeal
Long time unused to war’s appeal,
And from the scabbard bares the steel.
With him Fescennia’s armed train,
The dwellers in Falerii’s plain,
Who hold Soracte’s lofty hill
Or fair Flavinia’s cornland till,
Capena’s woods their dwelling make
Or Ciminus, its mount and lake.
With measured pace they march along,
And make their monarch’s deeds their song;
Like snow-white swans in liquid air,
When homeward from their food they fare,
And far and wide melodious notes
Come rippling from their slender throats,
While the broad stream and Asia’s fen
Reverberate to the sound again.
Sure none had thought that countless crowd
A mail-clad company;
It rather seemed a dusky cloud
Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud,
Press landward from the sea.
Leads a great host, himself a host;
Whence spread the Claudian race, since Rome
With Sabine burghers shared her home
With him the Amiternians came
And Cures’ sons of ancient name,
The squadron that Eretum guards
And green Mutusca’s olive-yards,
Those whom Nomentum’s city yields,
Who till Velinus’ Rosean fields,
Who Tetrica’s rude summit climb
Or on Severus sits sublime,
Or dwell where runs Himella by
Casperia’s walls and Foruli,
Who Tiber haunt and Fabaris’ banks,
Whom Nursia sends to battle down
From her cold home, Hortinian ranks
And Latian tribes of old renown,
With those whom Allia’s stream ill-starred
Flows through, dividing sward from sward:
Thick as the Libyan billows swarm
When fell Orion sets in storm,
Or as the sun-baked ears of grain
In Hæmus’ field or Lycia’s plain;
Their bucklers rattle, and the ground
Quakes, startled by their footfall’s sound.
Who hates all Troy with liegeman’s hate,
Yokes his swift horses to the car,
And brings his hosts to Turnus’ war,
The rustic tribes whose ploughshare tills
The vine-clad slopes of Massic hills,
Sent from Auruncan heights, or bound
From Sidicinian champaign-ground,
Who fertile Cales leave behind
Or where Vulturnian waters wind,
Saticule’s tenants, rough and rude,
And all the hardy Oscan
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