He orders his crew to bend their course and turn their prows to land, and glides joyfully into the shady river.

Forth now, Erato! and I will unfold who were the kings, what the tides of circ.u.mstance, how it was with ancient Latium when first that foreign army drew their fleet ash.o.r.e on Ausonia's coast; I will recall the preluding of battle. Thou, divine one, inspire thou thy poet. I will tell of grim wars, tell of embattled lines, of kings whom honour drove on death, of the Tyrrhenian forces, and all Hesperia enrolled in arms. A greater history opens before me, a greater work I essay.

Latinus the King, now growing old, ruled in a long peace over quiet tilth and town. He, men say, was sprung of Faunus and the nymph Marica of Laurentum. Faunus' father was Picus; and he boasts himself, Saturn, thy son; thou art the first source of their blood. Son of his, by divine ordinance, and male descent was none, cut off in the early spring of youth. One alone kept the household and its august home, a daughter now ripe for a husband and of full years for marriage. Many wooed her from wide Latium and all Ausonia. Fairest and foremost of all [56-93]is Turnus, of long and lordly ancestry; but boding signs from heaven, many and terrible, bar the way. Within the palace, in the lofty inner courts, was a laurel of sacred foliage, guarded in awe through many years, which lord Latinus, it was said, himself found and dedicated to Phoebus when first he would build his citadel; and from it gave his settlers their name, Laurentines. High atop of it, wonderful to tell, bees borne with loud humming across the liquid air girt it thickly about, and with interlinked feet hung in a sudden swarm from the leafy bough.

Straightway the prophet cries: 'I see a foreigner draw nigh, an army from the same quarter seek the same quarter, and reign high in our fortress.' Furthermore, while maiden Lavinia stands beside her father feeding the altars with holy fuel, she was seen, oh, horror! to catch fire in her long tresses, and burn with flickering flame in all her array, her queenly hair lit up, lit up her jewelled circlet; till, enwreathed in smoke and lurid light, she scattered fire over all the palace. That sight was rumoured wonderful and terrible. Herself, they prophesied, she should be glorious in fame and fortune; but a great war was foreshadowed for her people. But the King, troubled by the omen, visits the oracle of his father Faunus the soothsayer, and the groves deep under Albunea, where, queen of the woods, she echoes from her holy well, and breathes forth a dim and deadly vapour. Hence do the tribes of Italy and all the Oenotrian land seek answers in perplexity; hither the priest bears his gifts, and when he hath lain down and sought slumber under the silent night on the spread fleeces of slaughtered sheep, sees many flitting phantoms of wonderful wise, hears manifold voices, and attains converse of the G.o.ds, and hath speech with Acheron and the deep tract of h.e.l.l. Here then, likewise seeking an answer, lord Latinus paid fit sacrifice of an hundred woolly ewes, and [94-127]lay couched on the strewn fleeces they had worn. Out of the lofty grove a sudden voice was uttered: 'Seek not, O my child, to unite thy daughter in Latin espousals, nor trust her to the bridal chambers ready to thine hand; foreigners shall come to be thy sons, whose blood shall raise our name to heaven, and the children of whose race shall see, where the circling sun looks on either ocean, all the rolling world swayed beneath their feet.' This his father Faunus' answer and counsel given in the silent night Latinus restrains not in his lips; but wide-flitting Rumour had already borne it round among the Ausonian cities, when the children of Laomedon moored their fleet to the gra.s.sy slope of the river bank.

Aeneas, with the foremost of his captains and fair Iulus, lay them down under the boughs of a high tree and array the feast. They spread wheaten cakes along the sward under their meats--so Jove on high prompted--and crown the platter of corn with wilding fruits. Here haply when the rest was spent, and scantness of food set them to eat their thin bread, and with hand and venturous teeth do violence to the round cakes fraught with fate and spare not the flattened squares: _Ha! Are we eating our tables too?_ cries Iulus jesting, and stops. At once that accent heard set their toils a limit; and at once as he spoke his father caught it from his lips and hushed him, in amazement at the omen. Straightway 'Hail, O land!' he cries, 'my destined inheritance! and hail, O household G.o.ds, faithful to your Troy! here is home; this is our native country. For my father Anchises, now I remember it, bequeathed me this secret of fate: "When hunger shall drive thee, O son, to consume thy tables where the feast fails, on the unknown sh.o.r.es whither thou shalt sail; then, though outwearied, hope for home, and there at last let thine hand remember to set thy house's foundations and bulwarks." This was [128-162]the hunger, this the last that awaited us, to set the promised end to our desolations . . . Up then, and, glad with the first sunbeam, let us explore and search all abroad from our harbour, what is the country, who its habitants, where is the town of the nation. Now pour your cups to Jove, and call in prayer on Anchises our father, setting the wine again upon the board.' So speaks he, and binding his brows with a leafy bough, he makes supplication to the Genius of the ground, and Earth first of deities, and the Nymphs, and the Rivers yet unknown; then calls on Night and Night's rising signs, and next on Jove of Ida, and our lady of Phrygia, and on his twain parents, in heaven and in the under world. At this the Lord omnipotent thrice thundered sharp from high heaven, and with his own hand shook out for a sign in the sky a cloud ablaze with luminous shafts of gold. A sudden rumour spreads among the Trojan array, that the day is come to found their destined city. Emulously they renew the feast, and, glad at the high omen, array the flagons and engarland the wine.

Soon as the morrow bathed the lands in its dawning light, they part to search out the town, and the borders and sh.o.r.es of the nation: these are the pools and spring of Numicus; this is the Tiber river; here dwell the brave Latins. Then the seed of Anchises commands an hundred envoys chosen of every degree to go to the stately royal city, all with the wreathed boughs of Pallas, to bear him gifts and desire grace for the Teucrians. Without delay they hasten on their message, and advance with swift step. Himself he traces the city walls with a shallow trench, and builds on it; and in fashion of a camp girdles this first settlement on the sh.o.r.e with mound and battlements. And now his men had traversed their way; they espied the towers and steep roofs of the Latins, and drew near the wall. Before the city boys and men in their early [163-196]bloom exercise on horseback, and break in their teams on the dusty ground, or draw ringing bows, or hurl tough javelins from the shoulder, and contend in running and boxing: when a messenger riding forward brings news to the ears of the aged King that mighty men are come thither in unknown raiment. He gives orders to call them within his house, and takes his seat in the midst on his ancestral throne. His house, stately and vast, crowned the city, upreared on an hundred columns, once the palace of Laurentian Picus, amid awful groves of ancestral sanct.i.ty. Here their kings receive the inaugural sceptre, and have the fasces first raised before them; this temple was their senate-house; this their sacred banqueting-hall; here, after sacrifice of rams, the elders were wont to sit down at long tables. Further, there stood arow in the entry images of the forefathers of old in ancient cedar, Italus, and lord Sabinus, planter of the vine, still holding in show the curved pruning-hook, and gray Saturn, and the likeness of Ja.n.u.s the double-facing, and the rest of their primal kings, and they who had borne wounds of war in fighting for their country. Armour besides hangs thickly on the sacred doors, captured chariots and curved axes, helmet-crests and ma.s.sy gateway-bars, lances and shields, and beaks torn from warships. He too sat there, with the divining-rod of Quirinus, girt in the short augural gown, and carrying on his left arm the sacred shield, Picus the tamer of horses; he whom Circe, desperate with amorous desire, smote with her golden rod and turned by her poisons into a bird with patches of colour on his wings. Of such wise was the temple of the G.o.ds wherein Latinus, sitting on his father's seat, summoned the Teucrians to his house and presence; and when they entered in, he thus opened with placid mien:

'Tell, O Dardanians, for we are not ignorant of your city and race, nor unheard of do you bend your course [197-228]overseas, what seek you?

what the cause or whereof the need that hath borne you over all these blue waterways to the Ausonian sh.o.r.e? Whether wandering in your course, or tempest-driven (such perils manifold on the high seas do sailors suffer), you have entered the river banks and lie in harbour; shun not our welcome, and be not ignorant that the Latins are Saturn's people, whom no laws fetter to justice, upright of their own free will and the custom of the G.o.d of old. And now I remember, though the story is dimmed with years, thus Auruncan elders told, how Darda.n.u.s, born in this our country, made his way to the towns of Phrygian Ida and to the Thracian Samos that is now called Samothrace. Here was the home he left, Tyrrhenian Corythus; now the palace of heaven, glittering with golden stars, enthrones and adds him to the ranged altars of the G.o.ds.'

He ended; and Ilioneus pursued his speech with these words:

'King, Faunus' ill.u.s.trious progeny, neither hath black tempest driven us with stress of waves to shelter in your lands, nor hath star or sh.o.r.e misled us on the way we went. Of set purpose and willing mind do we draw nigh this thy city, outcasts from a realm once the greatest that the sun looked on as he came from Olympus' utmost border. From Jove hath our race beginning; in Jove the men of Dardania rejoice as ancestor; our King himself of Jove's supreme race, Aeneas of Troy, hath sent us to thy courts. How terrible the tempest that burst from fierce Mycenae over the plains of Ida, driven by what fate Europe and Asia met in the shock of two worlds, even he hath heard who is sundered in the utmost land where the ocean surge recoils, and he whom stretching midmost of the four zones the zone of the intolerable sun holds in severance. Borne by that flood over many desolate seas, we crave a scant dwelling [229-261]for our country's G.o.ds, an unmolested landing-place, and the air and water that are free to all. We shall not disgrace the kingdom; nor will the rumour of your renown be lightly gone or the grace of all you have done fade away; nor will Ausonia be sorry to have taken Troy to her breast.

By the fortunes of Aeneas I swear, by that right hand mighty, whether tried in friendship or in warlike arms, many and many a people and nation--scorn us not because we advance with hands proffering chaplets and words of supplication--hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven's high ordinance drove us forth to find. Hence sprung Darda.n.u.s: hither Apollo recalls us, and pushes us on with imperious orders to Tyrrhenian Tiber and the holy pools of Numicus' spring. Further, he presents to thee these small guerdons of our past estate, relics saved from burning Troy. From this gold did lord Anchises pour libation at the altars; this was Priam's array when he delivered statutes to the nations a.s.sembled in order; the sceptre, the sacred mitre, the raiment wrought by the women of Ilium. . . .'

At these words of Ilioneus Latinus holds his countenance in a steady gaze, and stays motionless on the floor, casting his intent eyes around.

Nor does the embroidered purple so move the King, nor the sceptre of Priam, as his daughter's marriage and the bridal chamber absorb him, and the oracle of ancient Faunus stirs deep in his heart. This is he, the wanderer from a foreign home, foreshewn of fate for his son, and called to a realm of equal dominion, whose race should be excellent in valour and their might overbear all the world. At last he speaks with good cheer:

'The G.o.ds prosper our undertaking and their own augury! What thou desirest, Trojan, shall be given; nor do I spurn your gifts. While Latinus reigns you shall not [262-294]lack foison of rich land nor Troy's own riches. Only let Aeneas himself come hither, if desire of us be so strong, if he be in haste to join our friendship and be called our ally. Let him not shrink in terror from a friendly face. A term of the peace for me shall be to touch your monarch's hand. Do you now convey in answer my message to your King. I have a daughter whom the oracles of my father's shrine and many a celestial token alike forbid me to unite to one of our own nation; sons shall come, they prophesy, from foreign coasts, such is the destiny of Latium, whose blood shall exalt our name to heaven. He it is on whom fate calls; this I think, this I choose, if there be any truth in my soul's foreshadowing.'

Thus he speaks, and chooses horses for all the company. Three hundred stood sleek in their high stalls; for all the Teucrians in order he straightway commands them to be led forth, fleet-footed, covered with embroidered purple: golden chains hang drooping over their chests, golden their housings, and they champ on bits of ruddy gold: for the absent Aeneas a chariot and pair of chariot horses of celestial breed, with nostrils breathing flame; of the race of those which subtle Circe bred by sleight on her father, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d issue of a stolen union. With these gifts and words the Aeneadae ride back from Latinus carrying peace.

And lo! the fierce wife of Jove was returning from Inachian Argos, and held her way along the air, when out of the distant sky, far as from Sicilian Pachynus, she espied the rejoicing of Aeneas and the Dardanian fleet. She sees them already house-building, already trusting in the land, their ships left empty. She stops, shot with sharp pain; then shaking her head, she pours forth these words:

'Ah, hated brood, and doom of the Phrygians that thwarts our doom! Could they perish on the Sigean [295-326]plains? Could they be ensnared when taken? Did the fires of Troy consume her people? Through the midst of armies and through the midst of flames they have found their way. But, I think, my deity lies at last outwearied, or my hatred sleeps and is satisfied? Nay, it is I who have been fierce to follow them over the waves when hurled from their country, and on all the seas have crossed their flight. Against the Teucrians the forces of sky and sea are spent.

What hath availed me Syrtes or Scylla, what desolate Charybdis? they find shelter in their desired Tiber-bed, careless of ocean and of me.

Mars availed to destroy the giant race of the Lapithae; the very father of the G.o.ds gave over ancient Calydon to Diana's wrath: for forfeit of what crime in the Lapithae, what in Calydon? But I, Jove's imperial consort, who have borne, ah me! to leave naught undared, who have shifted to every device, I am vanquished by Aeneas. If my deity is not great enough, I will not a.s.suredly falter to seek succour where it may be; if the powers of heaven are inflexible, I will stir up Acheron. It may not be to debar him of a Latin realm; well; and Lavinia is destined his bride unalterably. But it may be yet to defer, to make all this action linger; but it may be yet to waste away the nation of either king; at such forfeit of their people may son-in-law and father-in-law enter into union. Blood of Troy and Rutulia shall be thy dower, O maiden, and Bellona is the bridesmaid who awaits thee. Nor did Cisseus'

daughter alone conceive a firebrand and travail of bridal flames. Nay, even such a birth hath Venus of her own, a second Paris, another balefire for Troy towers reborn.'

These words uttered, she descends to earth in all her terrors, and calls dolorous Allecto from the home of the Fatal Sisters in nether gloom, whose delight is in woeful wars, in wrath and treachery and evil feuds: hateful to [327-360]lord Pluto himself, hateful and horrible to her h.e.l.l-born sisters; into so many faces does she turn, so savage the guise of each, so thick and black bristles she with vipers. And her Juno spurs on with words, saying thus:

'Grant me, virgin born of Night, this thy proper task and service, that the rumour of our renown may not crumble away, nor the Aeneadae have power to win Latinus by marriage or beset the borders of Italy. Thou canst set brothers once united in armed conflict, and overturn families with hatreds; thou canst launch into houses thy whips and deadly brands; thine are a thousand names, a thousand devices of injury. Stir up thy teeming breast, sunder the peace they have joined, and sow seeds of quarrel; let all at once desire and demand and seize on arms.'

Thereon Allecto, steeped in Gorgonian venom, first seeks Latium and the high house of the Laurentine monarch, and silently sits down before Amata's doors, whom a woman's distress and anger heated to frenzy over the Teucrians' coming and the marriage of Turnus. At her the G.o.ddess flings a snake out of her dusky tresses, and slips it into her bosom to her very inmost heart, that she may embroil all her house under its maddening magic. Sliding between her raiment and smooth b.r.e.a.s.t.s, it coils without touch, and instils its viperous breath unseen; the great serpent turns into the twisted gold about her neck, turns into the long ribbon of her chaplet, inweaves her hair, and winds slippery over her body. And while the gliding infection of the clammy poison begins to penetrate her sense and run in fire through her frame, nor as yet hath all her breast caught fire, softly she spoke and in mothers' wonted wise, with many a tear over her daughter and the Phrygian bridal:

'Is it to exiles, to Teucrians, that Lavinia is proffered in marriage, O father? and hast thou no compa.s.sion on [361-392]thy daughter and on thyself? no compa.s.sion on her mother, whom with the first northern wind the treacherous rover will abandon, steering to sea with his maiden prize? Is it not thus the Phrygian herdsman wound his way to Lacedaemon, and carried Leda's Helen to the Trojan towns? Where is thy plighted faith? Where thine ancient care for thy people, and the hand Turnus thy kinsman hath so often clasped? If one of alien race from the Latins is sought for our son, if this stands fixed, and thy father Faunus'

commands are heavy upon thee, all the land whose freedom severs it from our sway is to my mind alien, and of this is the divine word. And Turnus, if one retrace the earliest source of his line, is born of Inachus and Acrisius, and of the midmost of Mycenae.'

When in this vain essay of words she sees Latinus fixed against her, and the serpent's maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. As whilome a top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations. Nay, she flies into the woodland under feigned Bacchic influence, a.s.sumes a greater guilt, arouses a greater frenzy, and hides her daughter in the mountain coverts to rob the Teucrians of their bridal and stay the marriage torches. 'Hail, Bacchus!' she shrieks and clamours; 'thou only art worthy of the maiden; for to thee she takes up the lissom wands, thee she circles in the dance, to thee she trains and consecrates her tresses.' Rumour flies abroad; and the matrons, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s kindled by the furies, run all at once [393-426]with a single ardour to seek out strange dwellings. They have left their homes empty, they throw neck and hair free to the winds; while others fill the air with ringing cries, girt about with fawnskins, and carrying spears of vine. Amid them the infuriate queen holds her blazing pine-torch on high, and chants the wedding of Turnus and her daughter; and rolling her bloodshot gaze, cries sudden and harsh: 'Hear, O mothers of Latium, wheresoever you be; if unhappy Amata hath yet any favour in your affection, if care for a mother's right pierces you, untie the chaplets from your hair, begin the orgies with me.' Thus, amid woods and wild beasts' solitary places, does Allecto goad the queen with the encircling Bacchic madness.

When their frenzy seemed heightened and her first task complete, the purpose and all the house of Latinus turned upside down, the dolorous G.o.ddess flies on thence, soaring on dusky wing, to the walls of the gallant Rutulian, the city which Danae, they say, borne down on the boisterous south wind, built and planted with Acrision's people. The place was called Ardea once of old; and still Ardea remains a mighty name; but its fortune is no more. Here in his high house Turnus now took rest in the black midnight. Allecto puts off her grim feature and the body of a Fury; she transforms her face to an aged woman's, and furrows her brow with ugly wrinkles; she puts on white tresses chaplet-bound, and entwines them with an olive spray; she becomes aged Calybe, priestess of Juno's temple, and presents herself before his eyes, uttering thus:

'Turnus, wilt thou brook all these toils poured out in vain, and the conveyance of thy crown to Dardanian settlers? The King denies thee thy bride and the dower thy blood had earned; and a foreigner is sought for heir to the kingdom. Forth now, dupe, and face thankless perils; forth, cut down the Tyrrhenian lines; give the [427-458]Latins peace in thy protection. This Saturn's omnipotent daughter in very presence commanded me to p.r.o.nounce to thee, as thou wert lying in the still night.

Wherefore arise, and make ready with good cheer to arm thy people and march through thy gates to battle; consume those Phrygian captains that lie with their painted hulls in the beautiful river. All the force of heaven orders thee on. Let King Latinus himself know of it, unless he consents to give thee thy bridal, and abide by his words, when he shall at last make proof of Turnus' arms.'

But he, deriding her inspiration, with the words of his mouth thus answers her again:

'The fleets ride on the Tiber wave; that news hath not, as thou deemest, escaped mine ears. Frame not such terrors before me. Neither is Queen Juno forgetful of us. . . . But thee, O mother, overworn old age, exhausted and untrue, frets with vain distress, and amid embattled kings mocks thy presage with false dismay. Thy charge it is to keep the divine image and temple; war and peace shall be in the hands of men and warriors.'

At such words Allecto's wrath blazed out. But amid his utterance a quick shudder overruns his limbs; his eyes are fixed in horror; so thickly hiss the snakes of the Fury, so vast her form expands. Then rolling her fiery eyes, she thrust him back as he would stammer out more, raised two serpents in her hair, and, sounding her whip, resumed with furious tone:

'Behold me the overworn! me whom old age, exhausted and untrue, mocks with false dismay amid embattled kings! Look on this! I am come from the home of the Dread Sisters: war and death are in my hand. . . .'

So speaking, she hurled her torch at him, and pierced his breast with the lurid smoking brand. He breaks from sleep in overpowering fear, his limbs and body bathed in [459-494]sweat that breaks out all over him; he shrieks madly for arms, searches for arms on his bed and in his palace. The pa.s.sion of the sword rages high, the accursed fury of war, and wrath over all: even as when flaming sticks are heaped roaring loud under the sides of a seething cauldron, and the boiling water leaps up; the river of water within smokes furiously and swells high in overflowing foam, and now the wave contains itself no longer; the dark steam flies aloft. So, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his chief warriors to march on King Latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to defend Italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice for Trojans and Latins together. When he uttered these words and called the G.o.ds to hear his vows, the Rutulians stir one another up to arms.

One is moved by the splendour of his youthful beauty, one by his royal ancestry, another by the n.o.ble deeds of his hand.

While Turnus fills the Rutulian minds with valour, Allecto on Stygian wing hastens towards the Trojans. With fresh wiles she marked the spot where beautiful Iulus was trapping and coursing game on the bank; here the infernal maiden suddenly crosses his hounds with the maddening touch of a familiar scent, and drives them hotly on the stag-hunt. This was the source and spring of ill, and kindled the country-folk to war. The stag, beautiful and high-antlered, was stolen from his mother's udder and bred by Tyrrheus' boys and their father Tyrrheus, master of the royal herds, and ranger of the plain. Their sister Silvia tamed him to her rule, and lavished her care on his adornment, twining his antlers with delicate garlands, and combed his wild coat and washed him in the clear spring. Tame to her hand, and familiar to his master's table, he would wander the woods, and, however late the night, return home to the door he knew. Far astray, he floated idly down the stream, and allayed his heat on the green bank, when Iulus' [495-528]mad hounds started him in their hunting; and Ascanius himself, kindled with desire of the chief honour, aimed a shaft from his bended bow. A present deity suffered not his hand to stray, and the loud whistling reed came driven through his belly and flanks. But the wounded beast fled within the familiar roof and crept moaning to the courtyard, dabbled with blood, and filling all the house with moans as of one beseeching. Sister Silvia, smiting her arms with open hands, begins to call for aid, and gathers the hardy rustics with her cries. They, for a fell destroyer is hidden in the silent woodland, are there before her expectation, one armed with a stake hardened in the fire, one with a heavy knotted trunk; what each one searches and finds, wrath turns into a weapon. Tyrrheus cheers on his array, panting hard, with his axe caught up in his hand, as he was haply splitting an oaken log in four clefts with cross-driven wedges.

But the grim G.o.ddess, seizing from her watch-tower the moment of mischief, seeks the steep farm-roof and sounds the pastoral war-note from the ridge, straining the infernal cry on her twisted horn; it spread shuddering over all the woodland, and echoed through the deep forests: the lake of Trivia heard it afar; Nar river heard it with white sulphurous water, and the springs of Velinus; and fluttered mothers clasped their children to their breast. Then, hurrying to the voice of the terrible trumpet-note, on all sides the wild rustics s.n.a.t.c.h their arms and stream in: therewithal the men of Troy pour out from their camp's open gates to succour Ascanius. The lines are ranged; not now in rustic strife do they fight with hard trunks or burned stakes; the two-edged steel sways the fight, the broad cornfields bristle dark with drawn swords, and bra.s.s flashes smitten by the sunlight, and casts a gleam high into the cloudy air: as when the wind begins to blow and the flood [529-560]to whiten, gradually the sea lifts his waves higher and yet higher, then rises from the bottom right into the air. Here in the front rank young Almo, once Tyrrheus' eldest son, is struck down by a whistling arrow; for the wound, staying in his throat, cut off in blood the moist voice's pa.s.sage and the thin life. Around many a one lies dead, aged Galaesus among them, slain as he throws himself between them for a peacemaker, once incomparable in justice and wealth of Ausonian fields; for him five flocks bleated, a five-fold herd returned from pasture, and an hundred ploughs upturned the soil.

But while thus in even battle they fight on the broad plain, the G.o.ddess, her promise fulfilled, when she hath dyed the war in blood, and mingled death in the first encounter, quits Hesperia, and, glancing through the sky, addresses Juno in exultant tone:

'Lo, discord is ripened at thy desire into baleful war: tell them now to mix in amity and join alliance. Insomuch as I have imbued the Trojans in Ausonian blood, this likewise will I add, if I have a.s.surance of thy will. With my rumours I will sweep the bordering towns into war, and kindle their spirit with furious desire for battle, that from all quarters help may come; I will sow the land with arms.'

Then Juno answering: 'Terror and harm is wrought abundantly. The springs of war are aflow: they fight with arms in their grasp, the arms that chance first supplied, that fresh blood stains. Let this be the union, this the bridal that Venus' ill.u.s.trious progeny and Latinus the King shall celebrate. Our Lord who reigns on Olympus' summit would not have thee stray too freely in heaven's upper air. Withdraw thy presence.

Whatsoever future remains in the struggle, that I myself will sway.'

Such accents uttered the daughter of Saturn; and the [561-594]other raises her rustling snaky wings and darts away from the high upper air to Cocytus her home. There is a place midmost of Italy, deep in the hills, notable and famed of rumour in many a country, the Vale of Amsanctus; on either hand a wooded ridge, dark with thick foliage, hems it in, and midway a torrent in swirling eddies shivers and echoes over the rocks. Here is shewn a ghastly pool, a breathing-hole of the grim lord of h.e.l.l, and a vast chasm breaking into Acheron yawns with pestilential throat. In it the Fury sank, and relieved earth and heaven of her hateful influence.

But therewithal the queenly daughter of Saturn puts the last touch to war. The shepherds pour in full tale from the battlefield into the town, bearing back their slain, the boy Almo and Galaesus' disfigured face, and cry on the G.o.ds and call on Latinus. Turnus is there, and amid the heat and outcry at the slaughter redoubles his terrors, crying that Teucrians are bidden to the kingdom, that a Phrygian race is mingling its taint with theirs, and he is thrust out of their gates. They too, the matrons of whose kin, struck by Bacchus, trample in choirs down the pathless woods--nor is Amata's name a little thing--they too gather together from all sides and weary themselves with the battle-cry. Omens and oracles of G.o.ds go down before them, and all under malign influence clamour for awful war. Emulously they surround Latinus' royal house. He withstands, even as a rock in ocean unremoved, as a rock in ocean when the great crash comes down, firm in its own ma.s.s among many waves slapping all about: in vain the crags and boulders hiss round it in foam, and the seaweed on its side is flung up and sucked away. But when he may in nowise overbear their blind counsel, and all goes at fierce Juno's beck, with many an appeal to G.o.ds and void sky, 'Alas!' he cries, 'we are broken of fate and driven helpless in the [595-626]storm. With your very blood will you pay the price of this, O wretched men! Thee, O Turnus, thy crime, thee thine awful punishment shall await; too late wilt thou address to heaven thy prayers and supplication. For my rest was won, and my haven full at hand; I am robbed but of a happy death.'

And without further speech he shut himself in the palace, and dropped the reins of state.

There was a use in Hesperian Latium, which the Alban towns kept in holy observance, now Rome keeps, the mistress of the world, when they stir the War-G.o.d to enter battle; whether their hands prepare to carry war and weeping among Getae or Hyrcanians or Arabs, or to reach to India and pursue the Dawn, and reclaim their standards from the Parthian. There are twain gates of War, so runs their name, consecrate in grim Mars'

sanct.i.ty and terror. An hundred bolts of bra.s.s and ma.s.ses of everlasting iron shut them fast, and Ja.n.u.s the guardian never sets foot from their threshold. There, when the sentence of the Fathers stands fixed for battle, the Consul, arrayed in the robe of Quirinus and the Gabine cincture, with his own hand unbars the grating doors, with his own lips calls battles forth; then all the rest follow on, and the brazen trumpets blare harsh with consenting breath. With this use then likewise they bade Latinus proclaim war on the Aeneadae, and unclose the baleful gates. He withheld his hand, and shrank away averse from the abhorred service, and hid himself blindly in the dark. Then the Saturnian queen of heaven glided from the sky, with her own hand thrust open the lingering gates, and swung sharply back on their hinges the iron-bound doors of war. Ausonia is ablaze, till then unstirred and immoveable.

Some make ready to march afoot over the plains; some, mounted on tall horses, ride amain in clouds of dust. All seek out arms; and now they rub their shields smooth and make their spearheads glitter with [627-659]fat lard, and grind their axes on the whetstone: rejoicingly they advance under their standards and hear the trumpet note. Five great cities set up the anvil and sharpen the sword, strong Atina and proud Tibur, Ardea and Crustumeri, and turreted Antemnae. They hollow out head-gear to guard them, and plait wickerwork round shield-bosses; others forge breastplates of bra.s.s or smooth greaves of flexible silver.

To this is come the honour of share and pruning-hook, to this all the love of the plough: they re-temper their fathers' swords in the furnace.

And now the trumpets blare; the watchword for war pa.s.ses along. One s.n.a.t.c.hes a helmet hurriedly from his house, another backs his neighing horses into the yoke; and arrays himself in shield and mail-coat triple-linked with gold, and girds on his trusty sword.

Open now the gates of Helicon, G.o.ddesses, and stir the song of the kings that rose for war, the array that followed each and filled the plains, the men that even then blossomed, the arms that blazed in Italy the bountiful land: for you remember, divine ones, and you can recall; to us but a breath of rumour, scant and slight, is wafted down.

First from the Tyrrhene coast savage Mezentius, scorner of the G.o.ds, opens the war and arrays his columns. By him is Lausus, his son, unexcelled in bodily beauty by any save Laurentine Turnus, Lausus tamer of horses and destroyer of wild beasts; he leads a thousand men who followed him in vain from Agylla town; worthy to be happier in ancestral rule, and to have other than Mezentius for father.

After them beautiful Aventinus, born of beautiful Hercules, displays on the sward his palm-crowned chariot and victorious horses, and carries on his shield his father's device, the hundred snakes of the Hydra's serpent-wreath. Him, in the wood of the hill Aventine, Rhea the priestess [660-693]bore by stealth into the borders of light, a woman mingled with a G.o.d, after the Tirynthian Conqueror had slain Geryon and set foot on the fields of Laurentum, and bathed his Iberian oxen in the Tuscan river. These carry for war javelins and grim stabbing weapons, and fight with the round shaft and sharp point of the Sabellian pike.

Himself he went on foot swathed in a vast lion skin, s.h.a.ggy with bristling terrors, whose white teeth encircled his head; in such wild dress, the garb of Hercules clasped over his shoulders, he entered the royal house.

Next twin brothers leave Tibur town, and the people called by their brother Tiburtus' name, Catillus and valiant Coras, the Argives, and advance in the forefront of battle among the throng of spears: as when two cloud-born Centaurs descend from a lofty mountain peak, leaving h.o.m.ole or snowy Othrys in rapid race; the mighty forest yields before them as they go, and the crashing thickets give them way.

Nor was the founder of Praeneste city absent, the king who, as every age hath believed, was born of Vulcan among the pasturing herds, and found beside the hearth, Caeculus. On him a rustic battalion attends in loose order, they who dwell in steep Praeneste and the fields of Juno of Gabii, on the cool Anio and the Hernican rocks dewy with streams; they whom rich Anagnia, and whom thou, lord Amasenus, pasturest. Not all of them have armour, nor shields and clattering chariots. The most part shower bullets of dull lead; some wield in their hand two darts, and have for head-covering caps of tawny wolfskin; their left foot is bare wherewith to plant their steps; the other is covered with a boot of raw hide.

But Messapus, tamer of horses, the seed of Neptune, whom none might ever strike down with steel or fire, calls quickly to arms his long unstirred peoples and bands [694-727]disused to war, and again handles the sword.

These are of the Fescennine ranks and of Aequi Falisci, these of Soracte's fortresses and the fields of Flavina, and Ciminus' lake and hill, and the groves of Capena. They marched in even time, singing their King; as whilome snowy swans among the thin clouds, when they return from pasturage, and utter resonant notes through their long necks; far off echoes the river and the smitten Asian fen. . . . Nor would one think these vast streaming ma.s.ses were ranks clad in bra.s.s; rather that, high in air, a cloud of hoa.r.s.e birds from the deep gulf was pressing to the sh.o.r.e.

Lo, Clausus of the ancient Sabine blood, leading a great host, a great host himself; from whom now the Claudian tribe and family is spread abroad since Rome was shared with the Sabines. Alongside is the broad battalion of Amiternum, and the Old Latins, and all the force of Eretum and the Mutuscan oliveyards; they who dwell in Nomentum town, and the Rosean country by Velinus, who keep the crags of rough Tetrica and Mount Severus, Casperia and Foruli, and the river of Himella; they who drink of Tiber and Fabaris, they whom cold Nursia hath sent, and the squadrons of Horta and the tribes of Latinium; and they whom Allia, the ill-ominous name, severs with its current; as many as the waves that roll on the Libyan sea-floor when fierce Orion sets in the wintry surge; as thick as the ears that ripen in the morning sunlight on the plain of the Hermus or the yellowing Lycian tilth. Their shields clatter, and earth is amazed under the trampling of their feet.