Not now to glad this life of mine
I ask—forbid it, powers divine!
No; down to darkness I would bear
The joy, and with my darling share.’
To wretched men her genial rays,
And calls to work once more:
Stout Tarchon and the Trojan sire
Are rearing many a funeral pyre
Along the winding shore.
Here, as his country’s rites ordain,
Each brings his brave compatriots slain,
And while the dusk flames mount on high
A veil of darkness shrouds the sky.
Thrice ride they round each lighted pyre,
Encased in glittering mail,
Thrice circle the funereal fire,
And raise their piercing wail.
Earth, armour, all with tears are dewed,
And warrior-shouts and clarions rude
The vault of heaven assail.
There others on the embers throw
Rich booty, reft from slaughtered foe,
The helm, the ivory-hilted steel,
The bridle and the glowing wheel:
While some cast in the dead man’s gear,
The treacherous shield, the luckless spear.
Around they butcher herds of kine,
And soothe the shades with bristly swine,
And cattle, from the neighbouring mead
Swift harried, o’er the death-fires bleed.
Far down the line of coast they gaze
On kinsmen shrivelling in the blaze,
And fondly watch the bier,
Nor tear them from the hallowed ground,
Till dewy night the sky rolls round
And makes the stars appear.
Builds otherwhere full many a pile:
Some on the field their slain inhume,
Some send them forth to distant tomb,
Or to the city bear;
The rest in undistinguished mass
They burn, unheeding rank or class;
The wide plains flicker through the gloom
With ghastly funeral glare.
And now the third return of day
Had made the dewy night give way:
Sighing they tumble from each pyre
The hills of mingled dust,
And heap them, tepid from the fire,
With mounded earthen crust.
But in the royal city chief
Swell loud and high the sounds of grief;
There mothers of their sons bereft,
Young brides to widowed misery left,
Fond hearts of sisters, nigh to break,
And orphan boys their wailing make,
Cry malison on Turnus’ head
And execrate his bridal bed:
Who fain would wear Italia’s crown
Alone to battle should come down,
To triumph or to fall.
Loud clamours Drances, and attests
In Turnus’ hand the issue rests,
For him the Trojans call.
And Turnus too can boast his throng
With voices manifold and strong:
The cherished favour of the queen
Protects him with a mighty screen,
And many a deed of valour bold
And trophy won his fame uphold.
And tumult fiercest burns,
With doleful news the embassage
From Diomed returns:
’Tis idly spent, their toil and pain,
Gifts, gold, entreaties, all in vain:
Elsewhere must Latium seek relief,
Or yield her to the Trojan chief.
Latinus quails, and bends him low
Before the giant wave of woe:
Heaven’s wrath in sad reverses read,
The earth new mounded o’er the dead,
All warn him with presaging voice
Æneas is the Gods’ true choice:
So Latium’s wisest sons he calls
To council in the palace halls.
They meet, and flooding all the road
Stream onward to their king’s abode:
Midmost, in age and state the chief,
Latinus sits with face of grief,
Invites the lately-missioned train,
And bids them point by point explain.
Then talk is stilled, and Venulus,
The charge obeying, answers thus:
‘Townsmen of Latium! we have seen
King Diomed in his home:
Each perilous chance that lay between
Is mastered and o’ercome;
The hand that levelled Ilium’s towers
In friendship has been clasped in ours.
We found him on his work intent,
By might of victor hand
Rearing an Argive settlement
In Iapygian land.
Admission to his presence gained,
And privilege of speech obtained,
We tender gifts to buy his grace,
Inform him of our name and race,
Tell who our foe, and what the cause
Our embassy to Arpi draws.
He hears, and with untroubled eye
And courteous accent makes reply:
“Blest nations of Ausonian strain,
The heirs of Saturn’s golden reign,
What chance disturbs your peace, and goads
To rush on war’s untrodden roads?
All, all our chiefs who erst combined
To sweep the Trojans from mankind
(Let pass the sufferings in the field,
The dead by Simois’ wave concealed)
Alike have drained ’neath every sky
The cup of penal agony,
A hapless crew, whose lorn estate
E’en Priam would compassionate,
As Pallas’ baleful star can tell,
And grim Caphareus knows too well.
The perils of our warfare o’er,
Outcast we fly from shore to shore:
Lo, Menelaus borne away
To Proteus’ pillars all astray!
Ulysses, sorest tried of men,
’Neath Ætna sees the Cyclops’ den.
What need to tell of Pyrrhus slain,
Idomeneus expelled his reign,
And Locrians driven, their country lost,
To make their homes on Libya’s coast?
E’en he, Mycenæ’s mighty lord,
Who led us when at Troy we warred,
In his own hall shed out his life
By hand of his adulterous wife:
As Asia sinks in fight subdued,
‘The paramour takes up the feud.
‘O jealous Heaven, that no return
To hapless Diomed allows,
‘To see his home’s dear altars burn
And greet his wished-for spouse;
Nay, dreadful prodigies of ill
With ghastly presence hound me still:
My comrades lost before my eyes
Are turned to birds, and wing the skies,
Haunt, cruel change, the banks of streams,
And fill the rocks with piteous screams.
Such was the extremity of fate
On my transgression doomed to wait,
E’er since
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