The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse. Virgil
Unwitting whither Fate may drive, or where the Gods shall stay
And there we draw together men.
Now scarce upon the way
Was summer when my father bade spread sails to Fate at last.
Weeping I leave my fatherland, and out of haven passed10
Away from fields where Troy-town was, an outcast o'er the deep,
With folk and son and Household Gods and Greater Gods to keep.
Far off a peopled land of Mars lies midst its mighty plain,
Tilled of the Thracians; there whilom did fierce Lycurgus reign.
'Twas ancient guesting-place of Troy: our Gods went hand in hand
While bloomed our weal: there are we borne, and on the hollow strand
I set my first-born city down, 'neath evil fates begun,
And call the folk Æneadæ from name myself had won.
Unto Dione's daughter there, my mother, and the rest,
I sacrificed upon a day to gain beginning blest,20
And to the King of Heavenly folk was slaying on the shore
A glorious bull: at hand by chance a mound at topmost bore
A cornel-bush and myrtle stiff with shafts close set around:
Thereto I wend and strive to pluck a green shoot from the ground,
That I with leafy boughs thereof may clothe the altars well;
When lo, a portent terrible and marvellous to tell!
For the first stem that from the soil uprooted I tear out
Oozes black drops of very blood, that all the earth about
Is stained with gore: but as for me, with sudden horror chill
My limbs fall quaking, and my blood with freezing fear stands still.30
Yet I go on and strive from earth a new tough shoot to win,
That I may search out suddenly what causes lurk within;
And once again from out the bark blood followeth as before.
I turn the matter in my mind: the Field-Nymphs I adore,
And him, Gradivus, father dread, who rules the Thracian plain,
And pray them turn the thing to good and make its threatenings vain.
But when upon a third of them once more I set my hand,
And striving hard thrust both my knees upon the opposing sand—
—Shall I speak now or hold my peace?—a piteous groan is heard
From out the mound, and to mine ears is borne a dreadful word:40
'Why manglest thou a wretched man? O spare me in my tomb!
Spare to beguilt thy righteous hand, Æneas! Troy's own womb
Bore me, thy kinsman; from this stem floweth no alien gore:
Woe's me! flee forth the cruel land, flee forth the greedy shore;
For I am Polydore: pierced through, by harvest of the spear
O'ergrown, that such a crop of shafts above my head doth bear.'
I stood amazed: the wildering fear the heart in me down-weighed.
My hair rose up, my frozen breath within my jaws was stayed.
Unhappy Priam privily had sent this Polydore,
For fostering to the Thracian king with plenteous golden store.50
In those first days when he began to doubt the Dardan might,
Having the leaguered walls of Troy for ever in his sight.
This king, as failed the weal of Troy and fortune fell away,
Turned him about to conquering arms and Agamemnon's day.
He brake all right, slew Polydore, and all the gold he got
Perforce: O thou gold-hunger cursed, and whither driv'st thou not
The hearts of men?
But when at length the fear from me did fall,
Unto the chosen of the folk, my father first of all,
I show those portents of the Gods and ask them of their will,
All deem it good that we depart that wicked land of ill,60
And leave that blighted guesting-place and give our ships the breeze.
Therefore to Polydore we do the funeral services,
The earth is heaped up high in mound; the Death-Gods' altars stand
Woeful with bough of cypress black and coal-blue holy band;
The wives of Ilium range about with due dishevelled hair;
Cups of the warm and foaming milk unto the dead we bear,
And bowls of holy blood we bring, and lay the soul in grave,
And cry a great farewell to him, the last that he shall have.
But now, when we may trust the sea and winds the ocean keep
Unangered, and the South bids on light whispering to the deep,70
Our fellows crowd the sea-beach o'er and run the ships adown,
And from the haven are we borne, and fadeth field and town.
Amid the sea a land there lies, sweet over everything,
Loved of the Nereids' mother, loved by that Ægean king
Great Neptune: this, a-wandering once all coasts and shores around,
The Bow-Lord good to Gyaros and high Myconos bound,
And bade it fixed to cherish folk nor fear the wind again:
There come we; and that gentlest isle receives us weary men;
In haven safe we land, and thence Apollo's town adore;
King Anius, who, a king of men, Apollo's priesthood bore,80
His temples with the fillets done and crowned with holy bays,
Meets us, and straight Anchises knows, his friend of early days.
So therewith hand to hand we join and houseward get us gone.
There the God's fane I pray unto, the place of ancient stone:
'Thymbræan, give us house and home, walls to the weary give,
In folk and city to endure: let Pergamus twice live,
In Troy twice built, left of the Greeks, left of Achilles' wrath!
Ah, whom to follow? where to go? wherein our home set forth?
O Father, give us augury and sink into our heart!
Scarce had I said the word, when lo all doors with sudden start90
Fell trembling, and the bay of God, and all the mountain side,
Was stirred, and in the opened shrine the holy tripod cried:
There as a voice fell on our ears we bowed ourselves to earth:
'O hardy folk of Dardanus, the land that gave you birth
From root and stem of fathers old, its very bosom kind,
Shall take you back: go fare ye forth, your ancient mother find:
There shall Æneas' house be lords o'er every earth and sea,
The children of his children's sons, and those that thence shall be.'
So Phœbus spake, and mighty joy arose with tumult mixed,
As all fell wondering where might be that seat of city fixed,100
Where Phœbus called us wandering folk, bidding us turn again.