The Aeneid - Virgil (13 ebook reader .TXT) 📗

and part of earthly blood,
A mortal woman mixing with a god.
For strong Alcides, after he had slain
The triple Geryon, drove from conquer’d Spain
His captive herds; and, thence in triumph led,
On Tuscan Tiber’s flow’ry banks they fed.
Then on Mount Aventine the son of Jove
The priestess Rhea found, and forc’d to love.
For arms, his men long piles and jav’lins bore;
And poles with pointed steel their foes in battle gore.
Like Hercules himself his son appears,
In salvage pomp; a lion’s hide he wears;
About his shoulders hangs the shaggy skin;
The teeth and gaping jaws severely grin.
Thus, like the god his father, homely dress’d,
He strides into the hall, a horrid guest.

Then two twin brothers from fair Tibur came,
(Which from their brother Tiburs took the name,)
Fierce Coras and Catillus, void of fear:
Arm’d Argive horse they led, and in the front appear.
Like cloud-born Centaurs, from the mountain’s height
With rapid course descending to the fight;
They rush along; the rattling woods give way;
The branches bend before their sweepy sway.

Nor was Praeneste’s founder wanting there,
Whom fame reports the son of Mulciber:
Found in the fire, and foster’d in the plains,
A shepherd and a king at once he reigns,
And leads to Turnus’ aid his country swains.
His own Praeneste sends a chosen band,
With those who plow Saturnia’s Gabine land;
Besides the succour which cold Anien yields,
The rocks of Hernicus, and dewy fields,
Anagnia fat, and Father Amasene⁠—
A num’rous rout, but all of naked men:
Nor arms they wear, nor swords and bucklers wield,
Nor drive the chariot thro’ the dusty field,
But whirl from leathern slings huge balls of lead,
And spoils of yellow wolves adorn their head;
The left foot naked, when they march to fight,
But in a bull’s raw hide they sheathe the right.

Messapus next, (great Neptune was his sire,)
Secure of steel, and fated from the fire,
In pomp appears, and with his ardour warms
A heartless train, unexercis’d in arms:
The just Faliscans he to battle brings,
And those who live where Lake Ciminius springs;
And where Feronia’s grove and temple stands,
Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands.
All these in order march, and marching sing
The warlike actions of their sea-born king;
Like a long team of snowy swans on high,
Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky,
When, homeward from their wat’ry pastures borne,
They sing, and Asia’s lakes their notes return.
Not one who heard their music from afar,
Would think these troops an army train’d to war,
But flocks of fowl, that, when the tempests roar,
With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.

Then Clausus came, who led a num’rous band
Of troops embodied from the Sabine land,
And, in himself alone, an army brought.
’Twas he, the noble Claudian race begot,
The Claudian race, ordain’d, in times to come,
To share the greatness of imperial Rome.
He led the Cures forth, of old renown,
Mutuscans from their olive-bearing town,
And all th’ Eretian pow’rs; besides a band
That follow’d from Velinum’s dewy land,
And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,
And mountaineers, that from Severus came,
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella’s wanton waters play.
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:
The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
And the cold Nursians come to close the rear,
Mix’d with the natives born of Latine blood,
Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
When pale Orion sets in wintry rain;
Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,
Or Lycian fields, when Phoebus burns the skies,
Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around;
Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.

High in his chariot then Halesus came,
A foe by birth to Troy’s unhappy name:
From Agamemnon born⁠—to Turnus’ aid
A thousand men the youthful hero led,
Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown’d,
And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground,
And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,
Cales’ and Osca’s old inhabitants,
And rough Saticulans, inur’d to wants:
Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
Fasten’d with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.
Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear;
And on their warding arm light bucklers bear.

Nor Oebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
From nymph Semethis and old Telon sprung,
Who then in Teleboan Capri reign’d;
But that short isle th’ ambitious youth disdain’d,
And o’er Campania stretch’d his ample sway,
Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea;
O’er Batulum, and where Abella sees,
From her high tow’rs, the harvest of her trees.
And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold;
Sling weighty stones, when from afar they fight;
Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light.

Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went,
And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent.
The rude Equicolae his rule obey’d;
Hunting their sport, and plund’ring was their trade.
In arms they plow’d, to battle still prepar’d:
Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.

Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,
By King Archippus sent to Turnus’ aid,
And peaceful olives crown’d his hoary head.
His wand and holy words, the viper’s rage,
And venom’d wounds of serpents could assuage.
He, when he pleas’d with powerful juice to steep
Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,
To cure the wound giv’n by the Dardan dart:
Yet his untimely fate th’ Angitian woods
In sighs remurmur’d to the Fucine floods.

The son of fam’d Hippolytus was there,
Fam’d as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;
Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
And nurs’d his youth along the marshy shore,
Where great Diana’s peaceful altars flame,
In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.
Hippolytus, as old records have said,
Was by his stepdam sought to share her bed;
But, when no female arts his mind could move,
She turn’d to furious hate her impious love.
Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,
Another’s crimes th’ unhappy hunter bore,
Glutting his father’s eyes with guiltless gore.
But chaste Diana, who his death deplor’d,
With Aesculapian herbs his life restor’d.
Then Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,
The dead inspir’d with vital breath again,
Struck to the centre, with his flaming dart,
Th’ unhappy founder of the godlike art.
But Trivia kept in secret shades alone
Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;
And call’d him Virbius in th’ Egerian grove,
Where then he liv’d obscure, but safe from Jove.
For this, from Trivia’s temple and her wood
Are coursers driv’n, who shed their master’s