And plumy cones from helmets shorn,
And beaks from vanquished vessels torn,
And darts, and bucklers sheen.
There with his bowed augurial wand
And scanty robe with purple band,
The sacred buckler in his hand,
Sat Picus, horseman king,
Who stirred of old the jealous flame
Of Circe, wonder- working dame,
And by her potent drugs became
A bird of dappled wing.
Such was the fane within whose walls
The king enthroned the Trojans calls,
And, thronging round him as they stand,
With tranquil mien accosts the band:
Nor sail ye hither strange to Fame,
What need has power to waft you o’er
Such length of seas to this our shore?
If stress of wind, or way mista’en,
Or other suffering on the main,
Has made you thread our stream, and moor
Your vessels from its pleasant shore,
Disdain not this our Latin cheer,
But know the race to Saturn dear,
Not righteous by constraint or fear,
But freely virtuous, self-controlled
By memory of the age of gold.
Ay, now I mind, in earlier day
Auruncan elders wont to say
’Twas hence that Dardanus your king
For Phrygian land of old took wing,
And reached the towns at Ida’s base
And northern Samos, styled of Thrace:
From Corythus he went, and now
He suns him on Olympus’ brow,
And when to heaven our altars fume,
’Mid other powers he claims his room.’
‘Sage Faunus’ princely progeny,
We come not to your friendly coast
By random gale o’er ocean tost,
Nor land nor star has made us stray
From our determined line of way:
Of steady purpose one and all
We flock beneath your city wall,
Driven from an empire, greater none
Within the circuit of the sun.
Jove is our sire: to Jove’s high race
We, Dardans born, our lineage trace:
Jove’s seed, the monarch we obey,
Æneas, sends us here to-day.
How fierce a storm from Argos sent
On Ida’s plains its fury spent,
How Fate in dire collision hurled
The eastern and the western world,
E’en he has heard, whom earth’s last verge
Just separates from the circling surge,
And he who, to his kind unknown,
Dwells midmost ’neath the torrid zone.
Swept by that deluge o’er the foam
For our lorn gods we ask a home:
A belt of sand is all we crave,
And man’s free birthright, air and wave.
We shall not shame your Latin crown,
Nor light shall be your own renown,
Nor time obliterate the debt,
Nor Italy the hour regret
When Troy with outstretched arms she met
I swear it by Æneas’ fate,
By that right hand which makes him great,
In peace and war approved alike
A friend to aid, a foe to strike,
Full oft have mighty nations—nay,
Disdain not that unsought we pray,
Nor deem that wreaths and lowly speech
The grandeur of our name impeach—
Full oft with zeal and earnest prayers
Have nations wooed us to be theirs;
But Heaven’s high fate, with stern command,
Impelled us still to this your land.
Here Dardanus was born, and here
Apollo bids our race return:
To Tyrrhene Tiber points the seer
And pure Numicius’ hallowed urn.
These presents too our hands convey,
Scant relics of a happier day,
From burning Ilium snatched away.
From this bright gold before the shrine
His sire Anchises poured the wine;
With these adornments Priam sate
’Mid gathered crowds in kingly state,
The sceptre and the diadem:
Troy’s women wrought the vesture’s hem.’
Latinus’ face is fixed and mute;
He sits as rooted to the ground,
And turns his eyes in wonder round.
Not Priam’s crown nor purple wrought
So deeply stirs his princely thought:
His daughter’s bed—on that he dwells,
And Faunus’ riddle spells and spells:
Ay, this the chief the Fates prepare
From foreign parts his throne to share,
And hence the warrior race, whose sway
Should make a subject world obey.
At length with gladness he exclaims:
‘Speed, gracious Heaven, a parent’s aims
And thine own sign! I grant your prayer,
Kind guest, nor scorn the gifts you bear.
You shall not lack, while mine the throne,
Rich soil and plenty like your own.
Let but Æneas, if he feel
For us and ours so warm a zeal,
Would he be friend and firm ally,
Approach, nor shun our kindly eye:
For know, that treaty may not stand
Where king greets king and joins not hand.
Now list, and to your monarch take
What further answer here I make.
A maiden child is mine, whose hand
May mate with none of this our land;
Thus Heaven declares with many a sign,
And voices from my father’s shrine:
Our fate, they say, has yet in store
A bridegroom from a foreign shore,
Whose mingling blood shall raise our name
Above the empyrean frame.
That he, your chief, is Fortune’s choice,
So speaks my heart, my hope, my voice.’
He ceased, and bade be brought for all
Fleet horses from his royal stall:
Three hundred in the stable stood
With glossy coat and fiery blood:—
The servants hear, and straightway lead
For every chief a gallant steed:
A purple cloak each courser decks,
And golden poitrels grace their necks:
For Venus’ son the monarch’s care
Provides a car and princely pair,
Twin horses of ethereal seed,
Their nostrils breathing flames of fire,
Derived from that clandestine breed
By Circe stolen from her sire.
So,
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