Whose sires from Elis erst came down.
Then Astyr, proud of youthful charms,
With fiery steed and glancing arms:
Three hundred men beside him fare,
Nerved by one loyal will,
Who Cære’s home or Pyrgi share,
Who breathe Graviscæ’s tainted air,
Or Minio’s cornland till.
Brave Cinyras, here unsung,
Nor thou, despite thy scanty train,
Cupavo, fair and young:
From whose tall helm swan-plumes arise,
Memorial of thy sire’s disguise.
For Cycnus, all for love, ’tis said,
Of Phaethon untimely dead,
Embowered amid the poplar wood
Of that unhappy sisterhood,
Kept plaining o’er the cruel wrong,
And solacing his grief with song,
Till o’er his limbs began to grow
A downy plumage, white as snow;
Then to the skies he passed, and sent
His voice before him as he went.
And now his son in arms appears,
Leads forth a host of equal years,
And spreads his flying sails:
High on the prow a Centaur stands,
A huge rock heaved in both his hands;
The keel behind him trails.
Conducts his country’s chivalry,
Child of prophetic Manto he
And Tuscan Tiber’s flood;
Fair Mantua’s town he built and walled
And by his mother’s surname called:
Fair town! her sons of high degree,
Though not unmixed their blood.
Three races swell the mingled stream:
Four states from each derive their birth:
Herself among them sits supreme,
Her Tuscan blood her chiefest worth.
Five hundred thence Mezentius draws,
Sworn foes to his unrighteous cause,
A helmed and shielded train:
And Mincius, whom Benacus breeds,
In grey apparailment of reeds
Their vengeful barks to battle leads,
And launches on the main.
With all his hundred oars:
Thrown upward by the enormous sweep,
The billow foams and roars.
A triton on the vessel stood
And blew defiance to the flood:
His face a man’s and half his side,
A fish’s all the rest:
With giant force he stems the tide,
And rears his savage breast.
Across the sea conveyed
In thirty ships their friendly power,
And brought the Trojans aid.
And Phœbe o’er the middle sky
Impelled her chariot pale:
Æneas, robbed by care of rest,
The vessel’s course as helmsman dressed,
And trimmed the shifting sail.
When lo! a friendly company
Confronts him midway on the sea:
The nymphs to whom Cybebe gave
As goddesses to rule the wave,
They rode as ships before
In seemly order swam the flood,
As many as erewhile had stood
With prows attached to shore.
From far they recognize their king
And round him weave a choral ring.
Cymodoce, of all the train
Chief mistress of the vocal strain,
Her right hand on the vessel lays,
Oars with her left the watery ways,
And borne breast-high above the seas,
Stirs his awed soul with words like these:
‘Still wakes Æneas, heaven’s true seed?
Still wake, and mend your navy’s speed.
Lo here the pines from Ida’s seat,
Now ocean-nymphs, your sometime fleet!
What time the faithless Rutule lord
Bore headlong down with fire and sword,
Unwillingly we broke your chain
And went to seek you o’er the main.
The mighty Mother of her grace
In pity changed us, form and face,
And called us to a life divine
With other nymphs beneath the brine.
Your royal heir the while is pent
In palisade and battlement;
A hedge of spears is round him set,
And Latian foes the camp benet.
The Arcade horse with Tyrrhenes joined
Have mustered at the place assigned,
And Turnus bids his warlike train
Waylay them, ere the camp they gain.
Up then, and soon as morn shall rise
Array for fight your bold allies,
And take your shield, of Vulcan’s mould,
Invincible and rimmed with gold.
The morn shall see (’tis truth I speak)
Yon plains with Rutule carnage reek.’
A measured impulse gave;
Like wind-swift arrow to its mark
It darts along the wave.
The rest pursue. In wondering awe
The chief revolves the things he saw,
Yet cheers him, and with lifted eyes
Thus makes petition to the skies:
‘Blest Mother of the heavenly train,
Whom Dindymus delights,
Who lov’st the lions at thy rein,
The city’s tower-crowned heights,
Do thou the first my arms bestead;
Confirm the sign revealed;
Draw near us with auspicious tread,
Thy Phrygians’ help and shield.’
He spoke: and now the waxing day
Was climbing up the ethereal way,
Close on the skirts of night;
He bids the allies obey the call,
Awake their courage, one and all,
And gird them for the fight.
And now there dawn upon his ken
His leaguered camp, his gallant men,
As on the stern he stands;
At once he rears his shield on high:
With shouts the Trojans rend the sky:
Fast and more fast their darts they ply:
Hope nerves their drooping hands.
Such token give Strymonian cranes
Beneath a gloomy cloud,
What time they fly the autumnal rains
With clamour
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