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[fed,

"Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are
And father Tiber, in thy sacred bed
Receive Æneas; and from danger keep.
Whatever fount, whatever holy deep,
Conceals thy watery stores; where'er they rise,
And, bubbling from below, salute the skies,
Thou king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn
Diffuses fatness to the fruitful corn,
For this thy kind compassion of our woes,
Shall share my morning song, and evening vows.
But, oh! be present to thy people's aid;
And firm the gracious promise thou hast made."
Thus having said, two gallies, from his stores,
With care he chooses; mans, and fits with oars.
Now on the shore the fatal swine is found:
Wondrous to tell; she lay along the ground:
Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung;
She white herself, and white her thirty young;
Æneas takes the mother, and her brood,
And all on Juno's altar are bestow'd.
The following night, and the succeeding day,
Propitious Tiber smooth'd his watery way:
He roll'd his river back, and pois'd he stood:
A gentle swelling, and a peaceful flood.
The Trojans mount their ships; they put from
shore:

Borne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar.
Shouts from the land give omen to their course,
And the pitch'd vessels glide with easy force.
The woods and waters wonder at the gleam
Of shields, and painted ships, that stem the

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The fiery Sun had finish'd half his race,
Look'd back, and doubted in the middle space,
When they from far beheld the rising towers,
The tops of sheds, and shepherds' lowly bowers:
Thin as they stood, which, then of homely clay,
Now rise in marble, from the Roman sway.
These cots (Evander's kingdom, mean and poor)
The Trojan saw, and turn'd his ships to shore.
'Twas on a solemn day: th' Arcadian states,
The king and prince without the city gates,
Then paid their offerings in a sacred grove
To Hercules, the warrior son of Jove.
Thick clouds of rolling smoke involve the skies;
And fat of entrails on his altar fries.

[flood,

But when they saw the ships that stemm'd the And glitter'd through the covert of the wood, They rose with fear, and left th' unfinish'd feast; Till dauntless Pallas re-assur'd the rest To pay the rites. Himself, without delay, A javelin seiz'd, and singly took his way. Then gain'd a rising ground; and call'd from far; "Resolve me, strangers, whence, and what you are; Your business here, and bring you peace or war?” High on the stern, Æneas took his stand, And held a branch of olive in his hand, While thus he spoke: "The Phrygians' arms you Expell'd from Troy, provok'd in Italy By Latian foes, with war unjustly made: At first affianc'd, and at last betray'd, This message bear: the Trojans and their chief, Bring holy peace, and beg the king's relief." Struck with so great a name, and all on fire, The youth replies, "Whatever you require Your fame exacts: upon our shores descend, A welcome guest, and, what you wish, a friend."

[see,

He said; and downward hasting to the strand, Embrac'd the stranger prince, and join'd his hand.

Conducted to the grove, Eneas broke
The silence first, and thus the king bespoke:
"Best of the Greeks, to whom, by fate's command,
I bear these peaceful branches in my hand,
Undaunted I approach you; though I know
Your birth is Grecian, and your land my foe:
From Atreus though your ancient lineage came,
And both the brother-kings your kindred claim,
Yet, my self-conscious worth, your high renown,
Your virtue, through the neighbouring nations
blown,

Our fathers' mingled blood, Apollo's voice,
Have led me hither, less by need than choice.
Our founder Dardanus, as fame has sung,
And Greeks acknowledge, from Electra sprung:
Electra from the loins of Atlas came;
Atlas whose head sustains the starry frame.
Your sire is Mercury; whom long before
On cold Cyllene's top fair Maja bore.
Maja the fair, on fame if we rely,
Was Atlas' daughter, who sustains the sky:
Thus from one common source our streams
divide:

Ours is the Trojan, yours th' Arcadian side.
Rais'd by these hopes, I sent no news before,
Nor ask'd your leave, nor did your faith implore;
But come, without a pledge, my own ambassador.
The same Rutilians, who with arms pursue
The Trojan race, are equal foes to you.

"Our host expell'd, what farther force can stay The victor troops from universal sway? Then will they stretch their power athwart the land;

And either sea from side to side command.
Receive our offer'd faith; and give us thine:
Ours is a generous and experienc'd line :
We want not hearts nor bodies for the war;
In council cautious, and in fields we dare."
He said; and while he spoke, with piercing eyes
Evander view'd the man with vast surprise,
Pleas'd with his action, ravish'd with his face,
Then answer'd briefly, with a royal grace:
"O valiant leader of the Trojan line,

In whom the features of thy father shine,
How I recal Anchises, how I see

His motions, mien, and all my friend in thee!
Long though it be, 'tis fresh within my mind,
When Priam to his sister's court design'd
A welcome visit, with a friendly stay,
And through th' Arcadian kingdom took his way.
Then, past a boy, the callow down began
To shade my chin, and call me first a man.
I saw the shining train with vast delight,
And Priam's goodly person pleas'd my sight:
But great Anchises, far above the rest,
With awful wonder fir'd my youthful breast.
I long'd to join, in friendship's holy bands,
Our mutual hearts, and plight our mutual hands.
I first accosted him: I sued, I sought,
And with a loving force to Pheneus brought,
He gave me, when at length constrain❜d to go,
A Lycian quiver, and a Gnossian bow:
A vest embroider'd glorious to behold,
And two rich bridles, with their bits of gold,
Which my son's coursers in obedience hold.
The league you ask I offer, as your right:
And when tomorrow's Sun reveals the light,

With swift supplies you shall be sent away :
Now celebrate, with us, this solemn day;
Whose holy rites admit no long delay.
Honour our annual feast; and take your seat
With friendly welcome, at a homely treat."
Thus having said, the bowls (remov'd for fear)
The youths replac'd; and soon restor❜d the cheer.
On sods of turf he set the soldiers round;
A maple throne, rais'd higher from the ground,
Receiv'd the Trojan chief: and o'er the bed,
A lion's shaggy hide for ornament they spread.
The loaves were serv'd in canisters, the wine
In bowls, the priest renew'd the rites divine:
Broil'd entrails are their food, and beef's con-
tinued chine.

But, when the rage of hunger was repress'd,
Thus spoke Evander to his royal guest :
"These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,
From no vain fears, or superstition, spring;
Or blind devotion, or from blinder chance;
Or heady zeal, or brutal ignorance:
But sav'd from danger, with a grateful sense,
The labours of a god we recompense.
See, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky,
About whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie:
Such indigested ruin; bleak and bare,
How desert now it stands, expos'd in air!
'Twas once a robber's den; enclos'd around
With living stone, and deep beneath the ground.
The monster Cacus, more than half a beast,
This hold, impervious to the Sun, possess❜d.
The pavement ever foul with human gore;
Heads, and their mangled members, hung the door.
Vulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire,
Black clouds he belch'd, and flakes of livid fire.
Time, long expected, eas'd us of our load:
And brought the needful presence of a god.
Th' avenging force of Hercules, from Spain,
Artiv'd in triumph from Geryon slain;
Thrice liv'd the giant, and thrice liv'd in vain.
His prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove
Near Tiber's bank, to graze the shady grove.
Allur'd with hope of plunder, and intent
By force to rob, by fraud to circumvent.
The brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray'd,
Four oxen thence, and four fair kine convey'd :
And, lest the printed footsteps might be seen,
He dragg'd them backwards to his rocky den:
The tracts averse, a lying notice gave,
And led the searcher backward from the cave:
Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place,
To find fresh pasture, and untrodden grass:
The beasts, who miss'd their mates, fill'd all around
With bellowings, and the rocks restor❜d the sound.
One heifer, who had heard her love complain,
Roar'd from the cave, and made the project vain.
Alcides found the fraud: with rage he shook,
And toss'd about his head his knotted oak.
Swift as the winds, or Scythian arrows flight,
He clomb, with eager haste, th' aërial height.
Then first we saw the monster mend his pace:
Fear in his eyes, and paleness in his face,
Confess'd the god's approach: trembling he springs,
As terrour had increas'd his feet with wings:
Nor stay'd for stairs; but down the depth he threw
His body; on his back the door he drew.
The door, a rib of living rock; with pains
His father hew'd it out, and bound with iron chains.
He broke the heavy links: the mountain clɔs'd,
And bars and levers to his foe oppos'd.

VOL XIX.

The wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast ;
The fierce avenger came with bounding haste:
Survey'd the mouth of the forbidden hold; !
And here and there his raging eyes he roll❜d.
He gnash'd his teeth; and thrice he compass'
round

With winged speed, the circuit of the ground.
Thrice at the cavern's mouth he pull'd in vain,
And, panting, thrice desisted from his pain.
A pointed flinty rock, all bare, and black,
Grew gibbous from behind the mountain's back:
Owls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,
Here built their nests, and hither wing'd their flight.
The leaning head hung threatening o'er the flood,
And nodded to the left: the hero stood
Averse, with planted feet, and, from the right,
Tugg'd at the solid stone with all his might.
Thus heav'd, the fix'd foundations of the rock
Gave way: Heav'n echo'd at the rattling shock.
Tumbling it chok'd the flood: on either side
The banks leap backward, and the streams divide
The sky shrunk upward with unusual dread;
And trembling Tiber div'd beneath his bed.
The court of Cacus stands reveal'd to sight;
The cavern glares with new-admitted light.
So pent the vapours with a rumbling sound
Heave from below, and rend the hollow ground:
A sounding flaw succeeds: and, from on high,
The gods with hate beheld the nether sky:
The ghosts repine at violated night,
And curse th' invading Sun, and sicken at the sight.
The graceless monster, caught in open day,
Enclos'd, and in despair to fly away,
Howls horrible from underneath, and fills
His hollow palace with unmanly yells.
The hero stands above; and from afar
Plies him with darts, and stones, and distant war.
He, from his nostrils and huge mouth, expires
Black clouds of smoke, amidst his father's fires.
Gathering, with each repeated blast, the night:
To make uncertain aim, and erring fight.
The wrathful god then plunges from above,
And where in thickest waves the sparkles drove,
There lights, and wades through fumes, and gropes

his way:

Half sing'd, half stifled, till he grasp'd his prey.
The monster, spewing fruitless flames, he found;
He squeez'd his throat, he writh'd his neck around,
And in a knot his crippled members bound.
Then, from their sockets, tore his burning eyes;
Roll'd on a heap the breathless robber lies.
The doors, unbarr'd, receive the rushing day,
And thorough lights disclose the ravish'd prey.
The bulls redeem'd, breathe open air again :
Next, by the feet, they drag him from his den.
The wondering neighbourhood, with glad surprise,
Beheld his shagged breast, his giant size, [eyes.
His mouth that flames no more, and his extinguish'd
From that auspicious day, with rites divine,
We worship at the hero's holy shrine.
Potitius first ordain'd these annual vows,
As priests, were added the Pinarian house:
Who rais'd this altar in the sacred shade,
Where honours, ever due, for ever shall be paid.
For these deserts, and this high virtue shown,
Ye warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown.
Fill high the goblets with a sparkling flood:
And, with deep draughts, invoke our common god."
This said, a double wreath Evander twin'd:
And poplars, black and white, his temples bind.

E e

Then brims his ample bowl: with like design
The rest invoke the god, with sprinkled wine.
Meantime the Sun descended from the skies;
And the bright evening-star began to rise.
And now the priests, Potitius at their head,
In skins of beasts involv'd, the long procession led:
Held high the flaming tapers in their hands,
As custom had prescrib'd their holy bands:
Then with a second course the tables load;
And with full chargers offer to the god.
The Salii sing, and cense his altars round
With Saban smoke; their heads with poplar bound.
One choir of old, another of the young;
To dance, and bear the burden of the song.
The lay records the labour, and the praise,
And all th' iminortal acts of Hercules.
First, how the mighty babe, when swath'd in bands,
The serpents strangled with his infant hands.
Then, as in years and matchless force he grew,
Th' Echalian walls, and Trojan overthrew.
Besides a thousand hazards they relate,
Procur'd by Juno's, and Euristheus' hate.
Thy hands, unconquer'd hero, could subdue
The cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster crew.
Nor thy resistless arm the bull withstood:
Nor he the roaring terrour of the wood.
The triple porter of the Stygian seat,
With lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet,
And, seiz'd with fear, forgot thy mangled meat.
'Th' infernal waters trembled at the sight;
Thee, god, no face of danger could affright;
Not huge Typhous, nor th' unnumber'd snake,
Increas'd with hissing heads, in Lerna's lake.
"Hail, Jove's undoubted son! an added grace
To Heaven, and the great author of thy race,
Receive the grateful offerings, which we pay,
And smile propitious on thy solemn day."
In numbers, thus they sung: above the rest,
The den, and death of Cacus crown the feast.
'The woods to hollow vales convey the sound;
The vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound.
The rites perform'd, the cheerful train retire.
Betwixt young Pallas, and his aged sire
The Trojan pass'd, the city to survey;
And pleasing talk beguil'd the tedious way.
The stranger cast around his curious eyes:
New objects viewing still, with new surprise.
With greedy joy inquires of various things:
And acts and monuments of ancient kings.
Then thus the founder of the Roman towers:
"These woods were first the seat of sylvan powers,
Of nymphs and fawns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.
Nor law they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of labouring oxen, nor the shining share:
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gain'd to spare.
Their exercise the chase: the running flood
Supply'd their thirst; the trees supply'd their food.
Then Saturn came, who fled the power of Jove,
Robb'a of his realms, and banish'd from above.
The men, dispers'd on hills, to towns be brought;
And laws ordain'd, and civil customs taught:
And Latium call'd the land where safe he lay
From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.
With his mild empire peace and plenty came :
And hence the golden times deriv'd their name.
A more degenerate and discolour'd age
Succeeded this, with avarice and rage.

Th' Ausonians, then, and bold Sicanians came;
And Saturn's empire often chang'd the name.

Then kings, gigantic Tibris, and the rest,
With arbitrary sway, the land oppress'd.
For Tiber's flood was Albula before;
Till, from the tyrant's fate, his name it bore.
I last arriv'd, driv'n from my native home,
By fortune's power, and fate's resistless doom.
Long toss'd on seas, I sought this happy land:
Warn'd by my mother nymph, and call'd by Hea-
ven's command.”
[gate,

Thus, walking on, he spoke and show'd the
Since call'd Carmental by the Roman state;
Where stood an altar, sacred to the name
Of old Carmenta, the prophetic dame:
Who to her son foretold th' Ethenean race,
Sublime in fame, and Rome's imperial place.
Then shows the forest, which, in after times,
Fierce Romulus, for perpetrated crimes,
A sacred refuge made: with this, the shrine
Where Pan below the rocks had rites divine.
Then tells of Argus' death, his murder'd guest,
Whose grave and tomb his innocence attest.
Thence, to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads;
Now roof'd with gold; then thatch'd with homely
reeds.

A reverend fear (such superstition reigns
Among the rude) ev'n then possess'd the swains.
Some god they knew, what god they could not tell,
Did there amidst the sacred horrour dwell.
Th' Arcadians thought him Jove; and said they saw
The mighty thunderer with majestic awe;
Who shook his shield, and dealt his bolts around;
And scatter'd tempests on the teeming ground.
Then saw two heaps of ruins; once they stood
Two stately towns, on either side the flood.
Saturnia's and Janicula's remains :
And either place the founder's name retains,
Discoursing thus together, they resort
Where poor Evander kept his country court.
They view'd the ground of Rome's litigious hall,
Once oxen low'd, where now the lawyers bawl.
Then, stooping, through the narrow gates they
press'd,

When thus the king address'd his Trojan guest:
"Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,
Receiv'd Alcides, then a conqueror.
Dare to be poor, accept our. homely food
Which feasted him; and emulate a god."
Then underneath a lowly roof he led
The weary prince; and laid him on a bed:
The stuffing leaves, with hides of bears o'erspread.
Now night bad shed her silver dews around,
And with her sable wings embrac'd the ground,
When love's fair goddess, anxious for her son,
(New tumults rising, and new wars begun)
Couch'd with her husband, in his golden bed,
With these alluring words invokes his aid;
And, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,
Inspires each accent with the charms of love:
"While crael fate conspir'd with Grecian powers,
To level with the ground the Trojan towers,
I ask'd not aid th' unhappy to restore;
Nor did the succour of thy skill implore ;
Nor urg'd the labours of my lord in vain,
A sinking empire longer to sustain.
Though I much ow'd to Priam's house; and more
The danger of Æneas did deplore.

But now, by Jove's command, and fate's decree,
His race is doom'd to reign in Italy;
With humble suit I beg thy needful art,
O still propitious power that rules my heart!

A mother kneels a suppliant for her son:
By Thetis and Aurora thou wert won
To forge impenetrable shields; and grace,
With fated arms, a less illustrious race.
Behold, what haughty nations are combin'd
Against the relics of the Phrygian kind :
With fire and sword my people to destroy;
And conquer Venus twice, in conquering Troy."
She said; and straight her arms of snowy hue,
About her unresolving husband threw.
Her soft embraces soon infuse desire :
His bones and marrow sudden warmth inspire;
And all the godhead feels the wonted fire.
Not half so swift the rattling thunder flies,
Or forky lightnings flash along the skies.
The goddess, proud of her successful wiles,
And conscious of her form, in secret smiles.
Then thus, the power obnoxious to her charms,
Panting, and half dissolving in her arms:
"Why seek you reasons for a cause so just :
Or your own beauties, or my love distrust?
Long since, had you requir'd my helpful hand,
Th'. artificer and art you might command,
To labour arms for Troy; nor Jove, nor fate,
Confin'd their empire to so short a date :
And, if you now desire new wars to wage,
My skill I promise, and my pains engage.
Whatever melting metals can conspire,
Or breathing bellows, or the forming fire,
Is freely yours; your anxious fears remove :
And think no task is difficult to love."
Trembling he spoke: and, eager of her charms,
He snatch'd the willing goddess to his arms;
Till in her lap infus'd, he lay possess'd
Of full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.
Now when the night her middle race had rode,
And his first slumber had refresh'd the god;
The time when early housewives leave the bed;
When living embers on the hearth they spread;
Supply the lamp, and call the maids to rise,
With yawning mouths, and with half-open'd
eyes;

They ply the distaff by the twinkling light;
And to their daily labour add the night.
Thus frugally they earn their children's bread:
And uncorrupted keep their nuptial bed.
Not less concern'd, nor at a later hour,
Rose from his downy couch the forging power.
Sacred to Vulcan's name an isle there lay,
Betwixt Sicilia's coasts and Lipara,
Rais'd high on smoking rocks; and deep below,
In hollow caves, the fires of Ætna glow.
The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal;
Loud strokes and hissings of tormented steel
Are heard around: the boiling waters roar;
And smoky flames through fuming tunnels soar.
Hither, the father of the fire, by night,
Through the brown air precipitates his flight.
On their eternal anvils here he found
The brethren beating, and the blows go round:
A load of pointless thunder now there lies
Before their hands, to ripen for the skies:
These darts for angry Jove they daily cast;
Consum'd on mortals with prodigious waste.
Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three morc,
Of winged southern winds, and cloudy store
As many parts the dreadful mixture frame:
And fears are added, and avenging flame.
Inferior ministers for Mars prepare
His broken axle-trees and blunted war:

"

:

And send him forth again with furbish'd arms,
To wake the lazy war, with trumpets' loud alarms.
The rest refresh the scaly snakes that fold
The shield of Pallas, and renew their gold.
Full on the crest the Gorgon's head they place,
With eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.
'My sons," said Vulcan, “set your tasks aside;
Your strength, and master-skill, must now be try'd,
Arms for a hero forge: arms that require
Your force, your speed, and all your forming fire."
He said they set their former work aside,
And their new toils with eager haste divide.
A flood of molten silver, brass, and gold,
And deadly steel in the large furnace roll'd ;
Of this their artful hands a shield prepare ;
Alone sufficient to sustain the war.
Seven orbs within a spacious round they close!
One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows.
The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd;
The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
By turns their arms advance, in equal time:
By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs:
The fiery work proceeds with rustic songs.
While, at the Lemnian god's command, they urge
Their labours thus, and ply th' Æolian forge,
The cheerful morn salutes Evander's eyes;
And songs of chirping birds invite to rise.
He leaves his lowly bed; his buskins meet
Above his ancles; sandals sheath his feet:
He sets his trusty sword upon his side;
And o'er his shoulder throws a panther's hide,
Two menial dogs before their master press'd:
Thus clad, and guarded thus, he seeks his kingly
guest.

Mindful of promis'd aid he mends his pace;
But meets Eneas in the middle space.
Young Pallas did his father's steps attend;
And true Achates waited on his friend.
They join their hands: a secret seat they choose;
Th' Arcadian first their former talk renews.
"Undaunted prince, I never can believe
The Trojan empire lost, while you survive.
Command th' assistance of a faithful friend:
But feeble are the succours I can send.
Our narrow kingdom, here the Tiber bounds;
That other side the Latian state surrounds;
Insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds,
But mighty nations I prepare to join
Their arms with yours, and aid your just design.
You come, as by your better genius sent;
And fortune seems to favour your intent.
Not far from hence there stands a hilly town,
Of ancient building and of high renown;
Torn from the Tuscans by the Lydian race;
Who gave the name of Cære to the place,
Once Agyllina call'd: it flourish'd long
In pride of wealth, and warlike people strong:
Till curst Mezentius, in a fatal hour,
Assum'd the crown, with arbitrary power.
What words can paint those execrable times;
The subjects' sufferings, and the tyrant's crimes!
That blood, those murders, O ye gods! replace
On his own head, and on his impious race:
The living, and the dead, at his command
Were coupled, face to face, and hard to hand :
Till, chok'd with stench, in loath'd embraces ty'd,
The lingering wretches pin'd away, and dy'd.
Thus plung'd in ills, and meditating more,
The people's patience try'd, no longer bore

The raging monster: but with arms beset
His house, and vengeance and destruction threat.
They fire his palace: while the flame ascends,
They force his guards, and execute his friends.
He cleaves the crowd; and, favour'd by the night,
To Turnus' friendly court directs his flight.
By just revenge the Tuscans set on fire,
With arms their king to punishment require:
Their numerous troops, now muster'd on the strand,
My counsel shall submit to your command.
Their navy swarms upon their coast: they cry
To hoist their anchors; but the gods deny.
An ancient augur, skill'd in future fate,
With those foreboding words restrains their hate:
'Ye brave in arms, ye Lydian blood, the flower
Of Tuscan youth, and choice of all their power,
Whom just revenge against Mezentius arms,
To seek your tyrant's death by lawful arms;
Know this; no native of our land may lead
This powerful people: seek a foreign head.'
"Aw'd with these words, in camps they still abide;
And wait, with longing looks, their promis'd guide.
Torchan, the Tuscan chief, to me has sent
Their crown, and every regal ornament:
The people join their own with his desire;
And all, my conduct, as their king, require.
But the chill blood that creeps within my veins,
And age, and listless limbs unfit for pains,
And a soul conscious of its own decay,
Have forc'd me to refuse imperial sway.
My Pallas were more fit to mount the throne;
And should, but he's a Sabine mother's son ;
And half a native: but in you combine
A manly vigour, and a foreign line.
Where fate and smiling fortune show the way,
Pursue the ready path to sovereigu sway.
The staff of my declining days, my son,
Shall make your good or ill success his own.
In fighting fields from you shall learn to dare:
And serve the hard apprenticeship of war.
Your matchless courage and your conduct view;
And early shall begin t' admire and copy you.
Besides, two hundred horse he shall command:
Though few, a warlike and well-chosen band.
These in my name are listed: and my son
As many more has added in his own."
Scarce had he said: Achates and his guest,
With down-cast eyes, their silent grief exprest:
Who, short of succours, and in deep despair,
Shook at the dismal prospect of the war.
But his bright mother, from a breaking cloud,
To cheer her issue, thunder'd thrice aloud.
Thrice forky lightning flash'd along the sky,
And Tyrrhene trumpets thrice were heard on high.
Then, gazing up, repeated peals they hear :
And, in a Heaven serene, refulgent arms appear;
Reddening the skies, and glittering all around,
The temper'd metals clash, and yield a silver sound.
The rest stood trembling, struck with awe divine:
Eneas only conscious to the sign,

Presag'd th' event; and joyful view'd, above,
Th' accomplish'd promise of the queen of love.
Then, to th' Arcadian king: "This prodigy
(Dismiss your fear) belongs alone to me.
Heaven calls me to the war: th' expected sign
Is given of promis'd aids, and arms divine.
My goddess-mother, whose indulgent care
Foresaw the dangers of the growing war,
This omen gave; when bright Vulcanian arms,
Fated from force of steel by Stygian charms,

Suspended, shone on high: she then foreshow'd
Approaching fights, and fields to float in blood.
Turnus shall dearly pay for faith forsworn:
And corpse and swords, and shields, on Tiber
'borne,

Shall choke his flood: now sound the loud alarms,
And, Latian troops, prepare your perjur'd arms.”
He said, and rising from his homely throne,
The solemn rites of Hercules begun :
And on his altars wak'd the sleeping fires:
Then cheerful to his household gods retires.
There offers chosen sheep: th' Arcadian king
And Trojan youth the same oblations bring.
Next of his men, and ships, he makes review,
Draws out the best and ablest of the crew.
Down with the falling stream the refuse run,
To raise with joyful news his drooping son.
Steeds are prepar'd to mount the Trojan band,
Who wait their leader to the Tyrrhene land,
A sprightly courser, fairer than the rest,
The king himself presents his royal guest.
A lion's hide his back and limbs infold,
Precious with studded works, and paws of gold.
Fame through the little city spreads aloud
Th' intended march, amid the fearful crowd:
The matrons beat their breasts; dissolve in tears;
And double their devotion in their fears.
The war at hand appears with more affright:
And rises every moment to the sight.
Then, old Evander, with a close embrace, [face.
Strain'd his departing friend; and tears o'erflow his
"Would Heaven," said he, "my strength and

youth recal,

Such as I was beneath Preneste's wall,
Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
And set whole heaps of conquer'd shields on fire;
When Herilus in single fight I slew,
Whom with three lives Feronia did endue :
And thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore;
Till the last ebbing soul return'd no more:
Such if I stood renew'd, not these alarms,
Nor death, should rend me from my Pallas' arma,
Nor proud Mezentius thas unpunish'd boast
His rapes and murders on the Tuscan coast.
Ye gods! and mighty Jove, in pity bring
Relief, and hear a father, and a king.
If fate and you reserve those eyes to see
My son return with peace and victory;
If the lov'd boy should bless his father's sight;
If we shall meet again with more delight;
Then draw my life in length, let me sustain,
In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
But if your hard decrees, which, O! I dread,
Have doom'd to death his undeserving head,
This, O this very moment, let me die;
While hopes and fears in equal balance lie.
While yet possest of all his youthful charms,
I strain him close within these aged arms :
Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!"
He said, and swooning, sunk upon the ground:
His servants bore him off; and softly laid
His languish'd limbs upon his homely bed.
The horsemen march; the gates are open'd wide;
Æneas at their head, Achates by his side.
Next these the Trojan leaders rode along.
Last, follows in the rear, th' Arcadian throng,
Young Pallas shone conspicuous o'er the rest;
Gilded his arms, embroider'd was his vest.
So from the seas, exerts his radiant head
The star, by whom the lights of Heaven are led :

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