The Aeneid

By Virgil

“The Aeneid” is considered by some to be one of the most important epic poems of all time. The story is as much one of the great epic hero, Aeneas, as it is of the foundation of the Roman Empire. Aeneas, a Trojan Prince who escapes after the fall of troy, travels to Italy to lay the foundations for what would become the great Roman Empire. Virgil’s “Aeneid” is a story of great adventure, war, love, and of the exploits of an epic hero. In the work Virgil makes his commentary on the state of Rome during the Rule of Augustus. It was a time that had been previously ravaged by civil wars and with the reign of Augustus order and peace had begun to be restored. That order had a price though. Many of the freedoms of the old Roman Republic had been lost under the new Imperialistic Rome. This loss of freedom and the debate over the virtues of a Roman Republic versus an Imperialistic Rome was central to Virgil’s time and is interwoven throughout the poetic narrative of “The Aeneid.” Virgil’s work forms the historical foundation for the argument of the empire over the republic as the best form of government. This edition is translated into English verse by John Dryden and includes an introduction by Harry Burton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781420953572

Virgil

Virgil (70 BC-19 BC) was a Roman poet. He was born near Mantua in northern Italy. Educated in rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy, Virgil moved to Rome where he was known as a particularly shy member of Catullus’ literary circle. Suffering from poor health for most of his life, Virgil began his career as a poet while studying Epicureanism in Naples. Around 38 BC, he published the Eclogues, a series of pastoral poems in the style of Hellenistic poet Theocritus. In 29 BC, Virgil published his next work, the Georgics, a long didactic poem on farming in the tradition of Hesiod’s Works and Days. In the last decade of his life, Virgil worked on his masterpiece the Aeneid, an epic poem commissioned by Emperor Augustus. Expanding upon the story of the Trojan War as explored in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the hero Aeneas from the destruction of Troy to the discovery of the region that would later become Rome. Posthumously considered Rome’s national poet, Virgil’s reputation has grown through the centuries—in large part for his formative influence on Dante’s Divine Comedy—to secure his position as a foundational figure for all of Western literature.

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THE AENEID

By VIRGIL

Translated into English Verse by JOHN DRYDEN

Introduction by HARRY BURTON

The Aeneid

By Virgil

Translated into English Verse by John Dryden

Introduction by Harry Edwin Burton

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-6138-6

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5357-2

This edition copyright © 2019. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: A detail of Aeneas and the Sibyl in the Underworld, 1598 (oil on copper), Brueghel, Jan the Elder (1568-1625) / Private Collection / Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Book I

Book II

Book III

Book IV

Book V

Book VI

Book VII

Book VIII

Book IX

Book X

Book XI

Book XII

Introduction

THE LIFE OF VIRGIL

Sources of Information.—In the middle of the fourth century after Christ, Aelius Donatus, a teacher and grammarian, wrote a commentary on Virgil. The commentary itself is not now in existence, but the introduction is preserved and is our most important source of information for the details of Virgil’s life. Donatus used as his chief authority a work now lost, the De Viris Illustribus of Suetonius, the biographer of the first half of the second century, who had access to the writings of the first century and even of contemporaries of Virgil himself. Besides the work of Donatus there are biographies of less value by other late Latin writers and in the manuscripts in which Virgil’s poems have come down to us. Finally, there are occasional references to Virgil in the writings of his contemporaries and successors.

Virgil’s Boyhood and Education.—In the year 70 B.C. on the fifteenth of October—a day afterward celebrated in his honor Virgil was born in the little village of Andes, a few miles from the city of Mantua in northern Italy. His father had been a hired man, but had married his employer’s daughter, Magia, and, buying tracts of woodland and keeping bees, had prospered. When Virgil was twelve years old, he was sent away to school at Cremona, some thirty-five miles west of Mantua, where he remained until his fifteenth birthday. After studying for a short time at Milan, in the year 53 B.C. he went to Rome to complete his education. The chief purpose of higher education in Rome was the training of public speakers, and it is said that for a time Virgil was ambitious for a public career, but neither physically nor in disposition was he adapted to such a life. He then became seriously interested in the study of philosophy,—an interest that he never lost. Indeed, it was his plan, after finishing the Aeneid, to go to Greece, in order to study philosophy at its source.

His Return to Northern Italy.—Virgil probably remained in Rome for some years; the date of his return to his home near Mantua is not recorded. We know only that he was at home again in 42 B.C. It was a period of political confusion and civil strife. The state was readjusting itself after the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., and the final settlement came only with the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. After the Battle of Philippi in 42 B.C., the veteran soldiers of the triumvirs were rewarded with lands in northern Italy. As Cremona had been opposed to the triumvirate, much of its land was taken and, since that was not enough, some of the Mantuan territory suffered the same fate. Virgil’s father was still living. In the general confiscation his property was threatened, but, at least for a time, was saved, largely through the intervention of Asinius Pollio, governor of Cisalpine Gaul, whose acquaintance Virgil had made in Rome.

His Later Life in Rome and Campania.—Soon afterward he again went to Rome and, so far as we know, never returned to northern Italy. He was already well known from his earlier life in the city and especially from the publication of the Bucolics. Maecenas, the famous patron of other young men of literary promise, was friendly, and it was probably through him that Virgil secured an estate near Nola in central Campania. He had a house at Rome on the Esquiline Hill, but he disliked the great city and probably spent little time there. Naples became his real home and, except for occasional journeys, he probably stayed there most of the time until his death. He never married. In the year 38 or 37 B.C. he accompanied Maecenas, Horace, and other statesmen and men of letters to Brundisium,—a journey which has been made famous by one of the Satires of Horace. During the same period he went to Sicily and he was in Greece at least once before the year 23 B.C.

The End of His Life.—In the summer of the year 19 B.C., having brought the Aeneid to its present state, which he regarded as quite imperfect, Virgil went to Greece, intending to devote three years to the improvement of his great work. At Athens, however, he met Augustus and was induced to return with him to Italy. On the return journey Virgil was prostrated by the heat at Megara. He was able to proceed as far as Brundisium, but died there a few days after his arrival, on the twenty-first of September, 19 B.C. His ashes were carried to Naples and placed in a tomb on the road to Puteoli.

THE WORKS OF VIRGIL

The Minor Poems.—Virgil’s earliest poems were written during his student days and were varied in subject and form. Donatus gives the following list: Catalepton, Priapeia, Epigrammata, Dirae, Ciris, Culex, Aetna. Servius, the ancient commentator, adds the Copa. There is in existence a collection of poems ascribed to Virgil, corresponding closely to this list, but with the addition of another poem, the Moretum. The genuineness of the existing poems is, however, by no means conceded. Some of them certainly were not written by Virgil, others probably were, at least in part. The most important, the Culex, in about four hundred verses, is thought to be, in large part, Virgil’s own work.

The Bucolics.—While he was at Andes after his return from Rome, Virgil wrote ten poems, the Bucolics. The name Eclogues, by which they are commonly known, means simply selections and is not the proper title. These are imitations of Theocritus, the Greek pastoral poet of the third century before Christ, who described most delightfully the life of the Sicilian shepherds. Virgil’s poems are by no means so good. The combination of Sicilian and Mantuan elements and the introduction of historical personages give an impression of unreality. In spite of their defects, however, and their general inferiority to the poems of Theocritus, the Bucolics were widely read and established Virgil’s reputation.

The Georgics.—It was probably Maecenas who suggested to Virgil a poetical treatment of the farmer’s life. By nature and experience Virgil was well fitted for the task and in seven years, between 37 and 30 B.C., he produced a work which is in every way superior to the Bucolics. Having a scholarly, painstaking mind, he consulted the numerous authorities on the subject and wrote four books that were of practical as well as literary value. The subject of the first book is general agriculture; of the second, the cultivation of trees and the vine; of the third, the breeding and care of domestic animals; of the fourth, the keeping and habits of bees. On his return from Greece in 29 B.C., it is said that Octavian stopped at Atella in Campania and that Virgil read the books of the Georgics to him on four consecutive days.

The Aeneid.—The last eleven years of his life—from 30 to 19 B.C.—Virgil gave to the composition of the Aeneid. It was his original intention to describe in epic form the achievements of Octavian, but, finding contemporary history a difficult subject to treat in poetical form and realizing the possible danger of introducing living persons or their immediate ancestors, he decided to make Aeneas the hero of his poem and glorify Octavian only by way of prophecy. He was thoroughly familiar with the Homeric poems and took them as his models. He is said to have written the story first in prose, dividing it into twelve books. He then selected various parts, as suited his fancy, and turned them into verse. As he proceeded with the work, he read passages to his friends. There was widespread interest in the composition of the poem and eager anticipation of its publication. Augustus wrote to Virgil from Spain, begging that a specimen be sent to him. Before his departure for Greece in 19 B.C., the Aeneid being then in its present condition, Virgil asked Varius Rufus to burn it, if anything should happen to him. Just before his death at Brundisium, in despair at leaving his work unfinished, he demanded the manuscript, with the intention of destroying it. This was not permitted. After his death it was found that he had left his writings to Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, stipulating that they should publish nothing which he had not published. Augustus, however, ordered them to publish the Aeneid in the condition in which they found it, only removing superfluous verses. The evidences of the unfinished condition of the work are comparatively insignificant. A few inconsistencies and contradictions occur, and there are fifty-six verses which are metrically incomplete.

VIRGIL’S REPUTATION

During his lifetime and in the years immediately following, Virgil was highly regarded, but the preeminent position in Latin literature which he was destined to occupy later was not realized at that time. From the beginning of the first century, however, his superiority among Latin poets has been generally admitted. His writings were used as textbooks in the schools, not only for their literary value, but for the study of grammar and rhetoric. Educated persons learned long passages by heart and recited them at banquets. Verses are found scratched on the walls of Pompeii. He soon came to be almost deified, especially by poets. By the middle of the second century he was not only ranked with Homer, but was generally regarded as superhuman; his writings were thought to be inspired. There was a practice—called sortes Virgilianae—of opening his works at random and taking the advice of the first sentence that met the eye. Poems and plays were patched together from verses taken from Virgil’s writings. In the Saturnalia of Macrobius, written in the fourth century, Virgil appears as an authority on every subject. Suggestions of Christianity were found in his writings; the fourth Bucolic was thought to foretell the coming of Christ. Some believed that he was inspired with prophetic knowledge, others, less credulous, that he unconsciously predicted this event.

In the Middle Ages Virgil was regarded as the greatest poet of antiquity. Greek was not read and Homer’s reputation survived only as a tradition. Latin was the language of the church, and Virgil was accepted as the least pagan of the pagan authors and as at least a potential Christian. There was little literary appreciation, however, and the interest in Virgil was largely grammatical and rhetorical. During this period the idea was developed in Naples that Virgil had been a scientist of superhuman powers, which he had used for the benefit of the city. He acquired a general reputation as a magician, particularly outside of Italy, and, in the ignorance of the age, it became the fashion to attribute to him, as the best-known character of antiquity, all kinds of things that other men had done. There were innumerable stories; for example, it was said that he had built in Rome a palace with many statues about it, each representing a province, and each holding a bell which rang automatically if the province revolted. Stories of this sort appear in literature until the sixteenth century.

Meantime the Renaissance had brought greater intelligence, a better knowledge of antiquity, and literary appreciation, and Virgil was again valued for his real merits. During the following centuries he was very popular in France and Germany as well as Italy. In England his reputation has always been secure, and many of the greatest English poets have been indebted to him. In recent years there has been some adverse criticism, especially in Germany, directed mainly against his lack of originality. These criticisms, however, have had but little effect upon his general reputation as the greatest Latin poet and one of the few great poets of all literature.

THE TROJAN WAR AND THE ADVENTURES OF AENEAS

Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, while living as a shepherd on Mount Ida, was approached by the three goddesses, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, and asked to decide which was the most beautiful. He decided in favor of Venus, who had promised him as a reward the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. Shortly after this, while visiting at the court of Menelaus, king of Sparta, Paris fell in love with Helen, wife of Menelaus, and induced her to return with him to Troy, thus securing the reward promised by Venus. But his breach of hospitality was the cause of the Trojan War. The Greek states combined to avenge the insult to Menelaus. Under the leadership of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, brother of Menelaus, a great fleet was gathered at Aulis in Boeotia, whence it sailed to Troy. After a siege which lasted for ten years, the city was taken and destroyed.

Aeneas, son of Venus and Anchises, escaped with his father, his son Ascanius, and many companions, and put to sea in twenty vessels. For seven years they wandered about the Mediterranean Sea, seeking a new home. They went first to Thrace, then to Delos, then to Crete. From here, warned by the Penates that they must go to Italy, they sailed toward the west, and, after taking refuge from a storm on one of the Strophades, west of the Peloponnesus, they spent a winter at Actium. They then went on to Buthrotum on the coast of Epirus, where they received instructions from Apollo regarding the rest of their journey. From here they sailed to Drepanum in western Sicily, where Anchises died.

After passing the winter of the sixth year in Sicily, they set sail again, expecting to reach the Italian coast in a few days; but a storm sent by Juno, always the enemy of the Trojans, drove them upon the coast of Africa, near the recently founded city of Carthage. Here they were hospitably received by the queen, Dido, who fell passionately in love with Aeneas and sought to marry him and keep him with her in Carthage. Though for a time Aeneas returned the love of the queen, he decided that he must yield to the decree of fate and continue his journey to Italy. Dido, thus deserted, killed herself, and the flames of her funeral pyre were the last thing that Aeneas saw when he left the shores of Africa.

The Trojans returned to Sicily and on the anniversary of the death of Anchises celebrated games in his honor. They then went on to Cumae in Campania. Here, accompanied by the Sibyl, Aeneas was permitted to enter the lower world. He talked with Anchises, who in a long prophecy pointed out to him the souls of the great Romans of the future.

The Trojans then sailed up the Italian coast to a point near the mouth of the Tiber. Landing here, Aeneas made an alliance with Latinus, king of Laurentum, married his daughter Lavinia, and founded the town of Lavinium. Before the arrival of Aeneas, Lavinia had been betrothed to Turnus, king of the Rutulians. Turnus now formed a confederacy among the neighboring states, including even the Latins, in spite of the opposition of King Latinus, for the purpose of driving out the Trojans. Aeneas secured the help of Evander, an Arcadian, who had settled with his people on the future site of Rome. The war was ended by the death of Turnus fighting in single combat with Aeneas.

VIRGIL’S TREATMENT OF THE STORY

The Aeneid does not relate the adventures of Aeneas in chronological order. It begins at the time of his greatest peril in the seventh year of his wanderings, when, having sailed from Sicily, the Trojans regard their goal as already in sight. Juno, however, plans their destruction and they are driven upon the African coast. The greater part of the first book and all of the fourth are given to a detailed account of the experiences of the Trojans at Carthage. In the second and third books Aeneas relates to Dido the story of the Trojan War and of his own adventures before he reached Sicily. Beginning with the fourth book, the narrative is carried on chronologically, as already outlined. The first six books are a tale of adventure, in which after many vicissitudes Aeneas finally reaches Italy. The last six books are mainly a story of war, of the struggle that ultimately established the Trojans in Italy.

Aeneas is not a hero in the Homeric sense; he is hardly more than the plaything of fate. He reverences the gods, he is devoted to his father, he is loyal to his companions, and the epithet pius, so often applied to him, includes all these qualities. But he is not a man of decision, of ready and determined action, and he is so conscious of the coercion of the gods and of fate that he can hardly be said to be responsible for his own career. He regards himself as the creature of destiny, and this destiny is to found a city or a state in Italy.

The underlying purpose in the Aeneid is the glorification of Rome and of Augustus. It was a decree of fate that a great race should be established in Italy, and Aeneas was the instrument of that decree. Rome was a colony of Alba Longa, which was itself a colony of Lavinium, the city founded by Aeneas. The great Julian family, of which Augustus was an adopted member, traced its name and its descent from lulus or Ascanius, the son of Aeneas. Other great clans of Rome claimed descent from the companions of Aeneas. The great achievements of Rome are recited in the prophecy of Anchises in the sixth book, and again in the eighth, in the description of the shield made for Aeneas by Vulcan, on which was wrought the future history of Rome down to the Battle of Actium. But though we are here and there conscious in the Aeneid that the author is using his opportunities for the glorification of Rome and the great historical figures of Rome, so skillfully are the elements combined that the story itself loses nothing of interest, nor do we get an impression of incongruity and unreality. The adventures of Aeneas claim our interest above everything else and we never feel that he is made subordinate to the later heroes of Rome. In this respect,—in the introduction of contemporary life into a story of the remote past,—in the artistic use of mythological material, and in the sustained interest of the story itself, the Aeneid is probably unequalled in epic poetry.

HARRY EDWIN BURTON

1919.

THE AENEID

Book I

THE ARGUMENT

The Trojans, after a seven years’ voyage, set sail for Italy, but are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Æolus raises at Juno’s request. The tempest sinks one, and scatters the rest. Neptune drives off the Winds, and calms the sea. Æneas, with his own ship, and six more, arrives safe at an African port. Venus complains to Jupiter of her son’s misfortunes. Jupiter comforts her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the Carthaginians. Æneas, going out to discover the country, meets his mother in the shape of an huntress, who conveys him in a cloud to Carthage, where he sees his friends whom he thought lost, and receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by a device of Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and, after some discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following books.

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,

And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,

Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.

Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latin realm, and built the destin’d town;

His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome.     10

O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;

What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate;

For what offense the Queen of Heav’n began

To persecute so brave, so just a man;

Involv’d his anxious life in endless cares,

Expos’d to wants, and hurried into wars!

Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show,

Or exercise their spite in human woe?

Against the Tiber’s mouth, but far away,

An ancient town was seated on the sea;     20

A Tyrian colony; the people made

Stout for the war, and studious of their trade:

Carthage the name; belov’d by Juno more

Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.

Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav’n were kind,

The seat of awful empire she design’d.

Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly,

(Long cited by the people of the sky,)

That times to come should see the Trojan race

Her Carthage ruin, and her tow’rs deface;     30

Nor thus confin’d, the yoke of sov’reign sway

Should on the necks of all the nations lay.

She ponder’d this, and fear’d it was in fate;

Nor could forget the war she wag’d of late

For conqu’ring Greece against the Trojan state.

Besides, long causes working in her mind,

And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;

Deep graven in her heart the doom remain’d

Of partial Paris, and her form disdain’d;

The grace bestow’d on ravish’d Ganymed,     40

Electra’s glories, and her injur’d bed.

Each was a cause alone; and all combin’d

To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.

For this, far distant from the Latian coast

She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;

And sev’n long years th’ unhappy wand’ring train

Were toss’d by storms, and scatter’d thro’ the main.

Such time, such toil, requir’d the Roman name,

Such length of labor for so vast a frame.

Now scarce the Trojan fleet, with sails and oars,     50

Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores,

Ent’ring with cheerful shouts the wat’ry reign,

And plowing frothy furrows in the main;

When, lab’ring still with endless discontent,

The Queen of Heav’n did thus her fury vent:

Then am I vanquish’d? must I yield? said she,

"And must the Trojans reign in Italy?

So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force;

Nor can my pow’r divert their happy course.

Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,     60

The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?

She, for the fault of one offending foe,

The bolts of Jove himself presum’d to throw:

With whirlwinds from beneath she toss’d the ship,

And bare expos’d the bosom of the deep;

Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game,

The wretch, yet hissing with her father’s flame,

She strongly seiz’d, and with a burning wound

Transfix’d, and naked, on a rock she bound.

But I, who walk in awful state above,     70

The majesty of heav’n, the sister wife of Jove,

For length of years my fruitless force employ

Against the thin remains of ruin’d Troy!

What nations now to Juno’s pow’r will pray,

Or offerings on my slighted altars lay?"

Thus rag’d the goddess; and, with fury fraught.

The restless regions of the storms she sought,

Where, in a spacious cave of living stone,

The tyrant Æolus, from his airy throne,

With pow’r imperial curbs the struggling winds,     80

And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.

This way and that th’ impatient captives tend,

And, pressing for release, the mountains rend.

High in his hall th’ undaunted monarch stands,

And shakes his scepter, and their rage commands;

Which did he not, their unresisted sway

Would sweep the world before them in their way;

Earth, air, and seas thro’ empty space would roll,

And heav’n would fly before the driving soul.

In fear of this, the Father of the Gods     90

Confin’d their fury to those dark abodes,

And lock’d them safe within, oppress’d with mountain loads;

Impos’d a king, with arbitrary sway,

To loose their fetters, or their force allay.

To whom the suppliant queen her pray’rs address’d,

And thus the tenor of her suit express’d:

"O Æolus! for to thee the King of Heav’n

The pow’r of tempests and of winds has giv’n;

Thy force alone their fury can restrain,

And smooth the waves, or swell the troubled main—   100

A race of wand’ring slaves, abhorr’d by me,

With prosp’rous passage cut the Tuscan sea;

To fruitful Italy their course they steer,

And for their vanquish’d gods design new temples there.

Raise all thy winds; with night involve the skies;

Sink or disperse my fatal enemies.

Twice sev’n, the charming daughters of the main,

Around my person wait, and bear my train:

Succeed my wish, and second my design;

The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine,   110

And make thee father of a happy line."

To this the god: "’Tis yours, O queen, to will

The work which duty binds me to fulfil.

These airy kingdoms, and this wide command,

Are all the presents of your bounteous hand:

Yours is my sov’reign’s grace; and, as your guest,

I sit with gods at their celestial feast;

Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue;

Dispose of empire, which I hold from you."

He said, and hurl’d against the mountain side   120

His quiv’ring spear, and all the god applied.

The raging winds rush thro’ the hollow wound,

And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground;

Then, settling on the sea, the surges sweep,

Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep.

South, East, and West with mix’d confusion roar,

And roll the foaming billows to the shore.

The cables crack; the sailors’ fearful cries

Ascend; and sable night involves the skies;

And heav’n itself is ravish’d from their eyes.   130

Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue;

Then flashing fires the transient light renew;

The face of things a frightful image bears,

And present death in various forms appears.

Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief,

With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief;

And, Thrice and four times happy those, he cried,

"That under Ilian walls before their parents died!

Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train!

Why could not I by that strong arm be slain,   140

And lie by noble Hector on the plain,

Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields

Where Simoïs rolls the bodies and the shields

Of heroes, whose dismember’d hands yet bear

The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear!"

Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails,

Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,

And rent the sheets; the raging billows rise,

And mount the tossing vessels to the skies:

Nor can the shiv’ring oars sustain the blow;   150

The galley gives her side, and turns her prow;

While those astern, descending down the steep,

Thro’ gaping waves behold the boiling deep.

Three ships were hurried by the southern blast,

And on the secret shelves with fury cast.

Those hidden rocks th’ Ausonian sailors knew:

They call’d them Altars, when they rose in view,

And show’d their spacious backs above the flood.

Three more fierce Eurus, in his angry mood,

Dash’d on the shallows of the moving sand,   160

And in mid ocean left them moor’d a-land.

Orontes’ bark, that bore the Lycian crew,

(A horrid sight!) ev’n in the hero’s view,

From stem to stern by waves was overborne:

The trembling pilot, from his rudder torn,

Was headlong hurl’d; thrice round the ship was toss’d,

Then bulg’d at once, and in the deep was lost;

And here and there above the waves were seen

Arms, pictures, precious goods, and floating men.

The stoutest vessel to the storm gave way,   170

And suck’d thro’ loosen’d planks the rushing sea.

Ilioneus was her chief: Aletes old,

Achates faithful, Abas young and bold,

Endur’d not less; their ships, with gaping seams,

Admit the deluge of the briny streams.

Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound

Of raging billows breaking on the ground.

Displeas’d, and fearing for his wat’ry reign,

He rear’d his awful head above the main,

Serene in majesty; then roll’d his eyes   180

Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.

He saw the Trojan fleet dispers’d, distress’d,

By stormy winds and wintry heav’n oppress’d.

Full well the god his sister’s envy knew,

And what her aims and what her arts pursue.

He summon’d Eurus and the western blast,

And first an angry glance on both he cast;

Then thus rebuk’d: "Audacious winds! from whence

This bold attempt, this rebel insolence?

Is it for you to ravage seas and land,   190

Unauthoriz’d by my supreme command?

To raise such mountains on the troubled main?

Whom I—but first ’tis fit the billows to restrain;

And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign.

Hence! to your lord my royal mandate bear—

The realms of ocean and the fields of air

Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me

The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea.

His pow’r to hollow caverns is confin’d:

There let him reign, the jailer of the wind,   200

With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call,

And boast and bluster in his empty hall."

He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth’d the sea,

Dispell’d the darkness, and restor’d the day.

Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train

Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main,

Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands:

The god himself with ready trident stands,

And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;

Then heaves them off the shoals. Where’er he guides   210

His finny coursers and in triumph rides,

The waves unruffle and the sea subsides.

As, when in tumults rise th’ ignoble crowd,

Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;

And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,

And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:

If then some grave and pious man appear,

They hush their noise, and lend a list’ning ear;

He soothes with sober words their angry mood,

And quenches their innate desire of blood:   220

So, when the Father of the Flood appears,

And o’er the seas his sov’reign trident rears,

Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains,

High on his chariot, and, with loosen’d reins,

Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains.

The weary Trojans ply their shatter’d oars

To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores.

Within a long recess there lies a bay:

An island shades it from the rolling sea,

And forms a port secure for ships to ride;   230

Broke by the jutting land, on either side,

In double streams the briny waters glide.

Betwixt two rows of rocks a sylvan scene

Appears above, and groves for ever green:

A grot is form’d beneath, with mossy seats,

To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats.

Down thro’ the crannies of the living walls

The crystal streams descend in murm’ring falls:

No halsers need to bind the vessels here,

Nor bearded anchors; for no storms they fear.   240

Sev’n ships within this happy harbor meet,

The thin remainders of the scatter’d fleet.

The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes,

Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish’d repose.

First, good Achates, with repeated strokes

Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes:

Short flame succeeds; a bed of wither’d leaves

The dying sparkles in their fall receives:

Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise,

And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies.   250

The Trojans, dropping wet, or stand around

The cheerful blaze, or lie along the ground:

Some dry their corn, infected with the brine,

Then grind with marbles, and prepare to dine.

Æneas climbs the mountain’s airy brow,

And takes a prospect of the seas below,

If Capys thence, or Antheus he could spy,

Or see the streamers of Caïcus fly.

No vessels were in view; but, on the plain,

Three beamy stags command a lordly train   260

Of branching heads: the more ignoble throng

Attend their stately steps, and slowly graze along.

He stood; and, while secure they fed below,

He took the quiver and the trusty bow

Achates us’d to bear: the leaders first

He laid along, and then the vulgar pierc’d;

Nor ceas’d his arrows, till the shady plain

Sev’n mighty bodies with their blood distain.

For the sev’n ships he made an equal share,

And to the port return’d, triumphant from the war.   270

The jars of gen’rous wine (Acestes’ gift,

When his Trinacrian shores the navy left)

He set abroach, and for the feast prepar’d,

In equal portions with the ven’son shar’d.

Thus while he dealt it round, the pious chief

With cheerful words allay’d the common