What have you suffer'd since you lost your lord?
By what strange blessing are you now restor'd?
Still are you Hector's? or is Hector fled,
And his remembrance lost in Pyrrhus' bed?'
With eyes dejected, in a lowly tone,
After a modest pause, she thus begun :
6 Oh, only happy maid of Priam's race,
Whom death deliver'd from the foe's embrace!
Commanded on Achilles' tomb to die,
Not forc'd, like us, to hard captivity,
Or in a haughty master's arms to lie.
In Grecian ships, unhappy we were borne,
Endur'd the victor's lust, sustain❜d the scorn:
Thus I submitted to the lawless pride

}

Of Pyrrhus, more a handmaid than a bride. Cloy'd with possession, he forsook my bed, And Helen's lovely daughter sought to wed; Then me to Trojan Helenus resign'd, And his two slaves in equal marriage join'd; Till young Orestes, pierc'd with deep despair, And longing to redeem the promis'd fair, Before Apollo's altar slew the ravisher. By Pyrrhus' death the kingdom we regain'd; At least one half with Helenus remain'd. Our part, from Chaon, he Chaonia calls, And names, from Pergamus, his rising walls. But you what fates have landed on our coast? What gods have sent you, or what storms have toss'd? Does young Ascanius life and health enjoy, Sav'd from the ruins of unhappy Troy? O! tell me how his mother's loss he bears, What hopes are promis'd from his blooming years, How much of Hector in his face appears.'

She spoke; and mix'd her speech with mournful cries;
And fruitless tears came trickling from her eyes.
At length her lord descends upon the plain,
In pomp, attended with a numerous train;
Receives his friends, and to the city leads,
And tears of joy amidst his welcome sheds.
Proceeding on, another Troy I see,
Or, in less compass, Troy's epitome.
A rivulet by the name of Xanthus ran:
And I embrace the Scæan gate again.
My friends in porticos were entertain'd;
And feasts and pleasures through the city reign'd.
The tables fill'd the spacious hall around ;

And golden bowls with sparkling wine were crown'd.
Two days we pass'd in mirth, till friendly gales,
Blown from the south, supplied our swelling sails.
Then to the royal seer I thus began:

"O thou who know'st, beyond the reach of man,
The laws of heaven, and what the stars decree,
Whom Phoebus taught unerring prophecy,
From his own tripod, and his holy tree-
Skill'd in the wing'd inhabitants of air,
What auspices their notes and flights declare-
O! say—for all religious rites portend
A happy voyage, and a prosperous end;
And every power and omen of the sky
Direct my course for destin'd Italy;
But only dire Celano, from the gods,
A dismal famine fatally forebodes
O! say, what dangers I am first to shun,
What toils to vanquish, and what course to run.'
The prophet first with sacrifice adores

The greater gods; their pardon then implores;

Unbinds the fillet from his holy head;
To Phoebus, next, my trembling steps he led,
Full of religious doubts and awful dread.

Then, with his god possess'd, before the shrine,
These words proceeded from his mouth divine:
' O goddess-born! (for heaven's appointed will,
With greater auspices of good than ill,
Foreshows thy voyage, and thy course directs;
Thy fates conspire, and Jove himself protects)
Of many things, some few I shall explain,
Teach thee to shun the dangers of the main,
And how at length the promis'd shore to gain.
The rest the Fates from Helenus conceal,
And Juno's angry power forbids to tell.
First, then, that happy shore, that seems so nigh,
Will far from your deluded wishes fly:

Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy:
For you must cruise along Sicilian shores,
And stem the currents with your struggling oars;
Then round the' Italian coast your navy steer;
And, after this, to Circe's island veer;

And, last, before your new foundations rise,
Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether
skies.

Now mark the signs of future ease and rest;
And bear them safely treasur'd in thy breast.
When, in the shady shelter of a wood,
And near the margin of a gentle flood,
Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground,
With thirty sucking young encompass'd round;
The dam and offspring white as falling snow-
These on thy city shall their name bestow;
And there shall end thy labours and thy woe,

Nor let the threaten'd famine fright thy mind:
For Phoebus will assist; and Fate the way will find.
Let not thy course to that ill coast be bent,
Which fronts from far the' Epirian continent :
Those parts are all by Grecian foes possess'd.
The savage Locrians here the shores infest:
There fierce Idomeneus his city builds,
And guards with arms the Salentinian fields;
And on the mountain's brow Petilia stands,
Which Philoctetes with his troops commands.
E'en when thy fleet is landed on the shore,
And priests with holy vows the gods adore,
Then with a purple veil involve your eyes,
Lest hostile faces blast the sacrifice.

These rites and customs to the rest commend,
That to your pious race they may descend.
When, parted hence, the wind that ready waits
For Sicily, shall bear you to the straits
Where proud Pelorus opes a wider way,
Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea:
Veer starboard sea and land. The' Italian shore,
And fair Sicilia's coast, were one, before

An earthquake caus'd the flaw: the roaring tides
The passage broke, that land from land divides;
And, where the lands retir'd, the rushing ocean
rides.

Distinguish'd by the straits, on either hand,
Now rising cities in long order stand,

And fruitful fields: so much can time invade
The mouldering work, that beauteous Nature
made.-

Far on the right, her dogs foul Scylla hides:
Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides;

}

Then spouts them from below: with fury driven,
The waves mount up, and wash the face of heaven.
But Scylla from her den, with open jaws,
The sinking vessel in her eddy draws,
Then dashes on the rocks.-A human face,
And virgin bosom, hides her tail's disgrace:
Her parts obscene below the waves descend,
With dogs inclos'd; and in a dolphin end.
"Tis safer then to bear aloof to sea,

And coast Pachynus, though with more delay,
Than once to view mis-shapen Scylla near,
And the loud yell of watery wolves to hear.
Besides, if faith to Helenus be due,
And if prophetic Phoebus tell me true,
Do not this precept of your friend forget,
Which therefore more than once I must repeat:
Above the rest, great Juno's name adore;
Pay vows to Juno; Juno's aid implore.
Let gifts be to the mighty queen design'd ;
And mollify with prayers her haughty mind.
Thus, at the length, your passage shall be free,
And you shall safe descend on Italy.
Arriv'd at Cuma, when you view the flood
Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,
The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,
Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin'd.
She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits,
The notes and names, inscrib'd, to leaves commits.
What she commits to leaves, in order laid,
Before the cavern's entrance are display'd:
Unmov'd they lie: but, if a blast of wind
Without, or vapours issue from behind,
The leaves are borne aloft in liquid air;
And she resumes no more her museful care,