BOOK X

[Æneas, Returning with His Allies, is Warned by
Sea-Nymphs of the Camp's Desperate Straits.]
-(CONINGTON.)

HEY all day long in fight had striven,
With ceaseless toil and pain:

And now beneath a midnight heaven
Eneas ploughs the main.

For when, from good Evander sent,

He reached the Etruscan leader's tent,
Tells what his name and whence he springs,
What aid he asks, what powers he brings,
What arms are on Mezentius' side,

And Turnus' overweening pride,

And bids him think, with sighs and prayers,
What changes wait on man's affairs,
Not long the conference: Tarchon plights
His friendly troth, his force unites,

With action swift and brief:

The Lydian race, from fate set free,
By heaven's command put straight to sea,
Placed 'neath a foreign chief.

*

The day had vanished from on high, And Phoebe o'er the middle sky Impelled her chariot pale:

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Eneas, 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.

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 Eneas, heaven's true seed?
Still wake, and mend your navy's speed.

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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."

[Æneas Disembarks, Fiercely Opposed by Turnus.]
—(DRYDEN.)

Now from his lofty poop he viewed below

His camp encompassed, and the enclosing foe.

His blazing shield embraced he held on high,
The camp receive the sign, and with loud shouts reply.
Hope arms their courage: from their towers they throw
Their darts with double force, and drive the foe.
Thus, at the signal given, the cranes arise
Before the stormy south, and blacken all the skies.
King Turnus wondered at the fight renewed;
Till looking back the Trojan fleet he viewed:
The seas with swelling canvas covered o'er,
And the swift ships descending on the shore.
The Latians saw from far with dazzled eyes,
The radiant crest that seemed in flames to rise,
And dart diffusive fires around the field,
And the keen glittering of the golden shield.

Meantime the Trojan sends his troops ashore,
Some are by boats exposed, by bridges more;
With laboring oars they bear along the strand
Where the tide languishes and leap a-land.
Tarchon observes the coast with careful eyes,
And where no ford he finds, no water fries,
Nor billows with unequal murmur roar,
But smoothly slide along and swell the shore;
That course he steered, and thus he gave command:
"Here ply our oars, and at all hazard land;
Force on the vessel, that her keel may wound
This hated soil, and furrow hostile ground.
Let me securely land; I ask no more-
Then sink my ships, or shatter on the shore!"

This fiery speech inflames his fearful friends;
They tug at every oar, and every stretcher bends.
They run their ships aground, the vessels knock
(Thus forced ashore), and tremble with the shock.
Tarchon's alone was lost, and stranded stood,
Stuck on a bank, and beaten by the flood.

She breaks her back; the loosened sides give way,