When Paris stormed the Spartan’s bed,
Was mine the guiding star that led?
Armed I for war the adulterous hand,
Or battle’s flame with passion fanned?
Then had your terror been in place,
Your fears for your beloved race:
Now, all too late, you idly plain,
And fling your wrongful taunts in vain.’
Murmuring their diverse minds expressed,
As newborn gales in forest pent
Confusedly struggle for a vent,
And rippling ’mid the leaves, inform
The seaman of a coming storm.
Then he begins, the Sire of all,
Who rules the word at will:
E’en as he speaks, the Gods’ great hall
Grows tremulously still:
The firm earth quivers to her base:
High heaven is still through all its space:
The winds are whispered into sleep,
And waveless calm controls the deep.
‘Give ear, and with attention lay
Deep in your hearts the words I say.
Since Troy with Latium must contend,
And these your wranglings find no end,
Let each man use his chance to-day
And carve his fortune as he may;
Rutule or Trojan let him be,
Nations and names are nought to me:
Or be they fates to Rutules kind
That Ilium’s camp in leaguer bind,
Or Trojan rashness, soon betrayed,
And warnings by a foe conveyed.
Nor would I yet the Rutules spare:
They too the common chance must share:
Each warrior from his own good lance
Shall reap the fruit of toil or chance:
Jove deals to all an equal lot,
And Fate shall loose or cut the knot.’
This said, to witness his intent
He called his Stygian brother’s lake,
The banks where pitch and sand and mud
Together mix their seething flood,
And as his kingly brows he bent
Made all Olympus shake.
So came the council to its close:
Jove from his golden throne arose:
The Gods around their sovereign wait
And lead him to his palace gate.
The foe once more the siege essay.
Pent in their camp the Trojans lie,
Despair of help, yet cannot fly.
Arrayed in vain, they ring the wall,
A hapless remnant, thin and small.
Asius Imbrasides is there,
And Hicetaon’s valiant heir;
The Assaraci, twin warriors they,
Castor, and Thymbris old and grey,
In battle’s forefront stand:
Claros and Themon join the train,
The brethren of Sarpedon slain,
From Lycia’s mighty land.
Lyrnesian Acmon heaves a block,
Vast fragment of its parent rock,
Born of a race no toil that shun,
Mnestheus’ brother, Clytius’ son.
These fight with stones, with javelins those,
Rain fiery torches on their foes,
Or bend with force unerring bows.
There in the midst is Venus’ care,
The princely boy, his head all bare;
So, set in gold, beams forth a gem,
For collar or for anadem;
So polished ivory shines
Inlaid in terebinth or box;
Down his fair neck bright stream his locks,
Which pliant gold entwines.
Thou, Ismarus, too wast seen to deal
With archer craft the envenomed steel
And quell the assailant powers;
They home Mæonia’s fruitful mould,
Made rich by labour and the gold
That bright Pactolus showers.
There too is Mnestheus, raised heaven-high
By Turnus made yestreen to fly,
And Capys, marked for future fame,
From whom fair Capua takes her name.
With ceaseless toil and pain:
And now beneath a midnight heaven
Æneas ploughs the main.
For when, from good Evander sent,
He reached the Etruscan leader’s tent,
Tells what his name and whence he springs,
What aid he asks, what powers he brings,
What arms are on Mezentius’ side,
And Turnus’ overweening pride,
And bids him think, with sighs and prayers,
What changes wait on man’s affairs,
Not long the conference: Tarchon plights
His friendly troth, his force unites,
With action swift and brief:
The Lydian race, from fate set free,
By Heaven’s command put straight to sea
Placed ’neath a foreign chief.
First sails Æneas’ royal ship:
The Phrygian lions arm her tip,
And Ida spreads its shade above,
The hill that Teucrian exiles love.
There sits Æneas on the stern,
The tides that make the war to turn
Deep pondering o’er and o’er;
And Pallas, ever at his side,
Asks of the stars, the night-fare’s guide,
Or questions of his wanderings wide
On ocean and on shore.
The gates of song expand;
Say what the host to war comes on
From forth the Etruscan strand,
And, following in Æneas’ train,
Spreads sail, and navigates the main.
His Tiger o’er the deep;
A thousand warriors at his side
In Clusium’s lofty towers that bide
And Cosæ’s warlike keep:
Light quivers from their shoulders hang,
Their deadly bows in combat twang.
Grim Abas next; his followers bold
In gleaming steel arrayed;
High on his stern, a blaze of gold,
Apollo shone displayed.
Six hundred Populonia gave
To share his fortunes, tried and brave,
And Ilva sends three hundred more,
Rich island-home of Chalyb ore.
Then far-renowned Asilas third,
Who tells Heaven’s will to men:
The starry sky, the victim herd,
The levin-bolt, the voiceful bird,
All own his piercing ken:
To war he brings a mighty throng,
True spearmen all, a thousand strong.
The people these of Pisa’s
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