Let her the causes of her hatred tell,
But you can witness its effects too well.
You saw the storm she raised on Libyan floods,
That mixed the mounting billows with the clouds.
When, bribing Æolus, she shook the main,
And moved rebellion in your watery reign.
With fury she possessed the Dardan dames
To burn their fleet with execrable flames,
And forced Æneas, when their ships were lost,
To leave his followers on a foreign coast.
For what remains, your godhead I implore,
And trust my son to your protecting power;
If neither Jove's nor Fate's decree withstand,
Secure his passage to the Latian land."
Then thus the mighty ruler of the main :
"What may not Venus hope from Neptune's reign?
My kingdom claims your birth; my late defence
Of your endangered fleet may claim your confidence.
Nor less by land than sea my deeds declare
How much your loved Æneas is my care.
Thee Xanthus and thee Simois I attest;
Your Trojan troops, when proud Achilles pressed,
And drove before him headlong on the plain,
And dashed against the walls the trembling train;
When floods were filled with bodies of the slain.
When crimson Xanthus, doubtful of his way,
Stood up on ridges to behold the sea,
New heaps came tumbling in and choked his way.
When your Æneas fought, but fought with odds
Of force unequal and unequal gods,
I spread a cloud before the victor's sight,
Sustained and vanquished and secured his flight.
Even then secured him, when I sought with joy
The vowed destruction of ungrateful Troy.
My will's the same. Fair goddess, fear no more,
Your fleet shall safely gain the Latian shore.
Their lives are given; one destined head alone
Shall perish, and for multitudes atone."
Thus having armed with hopes her anxious mind,
His finny team Saturnian Neptune joined ;
Then adds the foamy bridle to their jaws,
And to the loosened reins permits the laws.
High on the waves his azure car he guides;
Its axles thunder and the sea subsides,
And the smooth ocean rolls her silent tides.
The tempests fly before their father's face,
Trains of inferior gods his triumph grace,
And monster whales before their master play,
And choirs of Tritons crowd the watery way.
The marshalled powers in equal troops divide
To right and left; the gods his better side
Enclose, and on the worse the Nymphs and Nereids ride.
Now smiling Hope, with sweet vicissitude,
Within the hero's mind his joys renewed.
He calls to raise the masts, the sheets display;
The cheerful crew with diligence obey,
They scud before the wind and sail in open sea.
Ahead of all the master-pilot steers,
And as he leads, the following navy veers.
The steeds of night had travelled half the sky,
The drowsy rowers on their benches lie,
When the soft god of sleep, with easy flight
Descends and draws behind a trail of light.
Thou Palinurus art his destined prey,
To thee alone he takes his fatal way.
Dire dreams to thee and iron sleep he bears,
And, lighting on thy prow, the form of Phorbas wears.
Then thus the traitor god began his tale :
"The winds, my friend, inspire a pleasing gale;
The ships, without thy care, securely sail.
Now steal an hour of sweet repose, and I
Will take the rudder and thy room supply;
To whom the yawning pilot, half asleep :
"Me dost thou bid to trust the treacherous deep?
The harlot smiles of her dissembling face,
And to her faith commit the Trojan race.
Shall I believe the Syren south again,
And, oft betrayed, not know the monster main ?"
He said his fastened hands the rudder keep,
And, fixed on heaven, his eyes repel invading sleep.
The god was wroth, and at his temples threw
A branch in Lethe dipped, and drunk with Stygian dew.
The pilot, vanquished by the power divine,
Soon closed his swimming eyes and lay supine.
Scarce were his limbs extended at their length,
The god, insulting with superior strength,
Fell heavy on him, plunged him in the sea,
And, with the stern, the rudder tore away.
Headlong he fell, and struggling in the main,
Cried out for helping hands, but cried in vain ;
The victor demon mounts obscure in air,
While the ship sails without the pilot's care.
On Neptune's faith the floating fleet relies;
But what the man forsook the god supplies,
And o'er the dangerous deep secure the navy flies;
Glides by the Syren's cliffs, a shelfy coast,
Long infamous for ships and sailors lost,
And white with bones; the impetuous ocean roars,
And rocks rebellow from the sounding shores.
The watchful hero felt the knocks, and found
The tossing vessel sailed on shoaly ground.
Sure of his pilot's loss, he takes himself
The helm, and steers aloof, and shuns the shelf.
Inwardly he grieved, and groaning from the breast,
Deplored his death, and thus his pain expressed :
"For faith reposed on seas, and on the flattering sky,
Thy naked corpse is doomed on shores unknown to lie."
The Sibyl foretells Æneas the adventures he should meet with in Italy. She attends him to hell; describing to him the various scenes of that place, and conducting him to his father Anchises, who instructs him in those sublime mysteries of the soul of the world, and the transmigration; and shows him that glorious race of heroes which was to descend from him and his posterity.
HE said, and wept; then spread his sails before
The winds, and reached at length the Cuman shore ;
Their anchors dropped, his crew the vessels moor;
They turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land,
And greet with greedy joy the Italian strand.
Some strike from clashing flints their fiery seed,
Some gather sticks the kindled flames to feed,
Or search for hollow trees and fell the woods,
Or trace through valleys the discovered floods.
Thus while their several charges they fulfil,
The pious prince ascends the sacred hill
Where Phoebus is adored, and seeks the shade
Which hides from sight his venerable maid;
Deep in a cave the Sibyl makes abode ;
Thence full of fate returns and of the god;
Through Trivia's grove they walk, and now behold,
And enter now the temple roofed with gold.
When Dædalus, to fly the Cretan shore,
His heavy limbs on jointed pinions bore
(The first who sailed in air), 'tis sung by fame,
To the Cumæan coast at length he came,
And here alighting built this costly frame,
Inscribed to Phoebus; here he hung on high
The steerage of his wings that cut the sky;
Then o'er the lofty gate his art embossed
Androgeos' death and offerings to his ghost.
Seven youths from Athens yearly sent to meet
The fate appointed by revengeful Crete;
And next to those the dreadful urn was placed
In which the destined names by lots were cast.
The mournful parents stand around in tears,
And rising Crete against their shore appears.
There too, in living sculpture, might be seen
The mad affection of the Cretan Queen;
Then how she cheats her bellowing lover's eye,
The rushing leap, the doubtful progeny,
The lower part a beast, a man above,
The monument of their polluted love.
Nor far from thence he graved the wondrous maze,
A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways;
Here dwells the monster, hid from human view,
Not to be found but by the faithful clue;
Till the kind artist, moved with pious grief,
Lent to the loving maid this last relief;
And all those erring paths described so well,
That Theseus conquered, and the monster fell.
Here hapless Icarus had found his part,
Had not the father's grief restrained his art.
He twice essayed to cast his son in gold;
Twice from his hands he dropped the forming mould.
All this with wondering eyes Æneas viewed,
Each varying object his delight renewed.
Eager to read the rest, Achates came,
And by his side the mad divining dame,
The priestess of the god, Deiphobe her name.
"Time suffers not," she said, "to feed your eyes
With empty pleasures: haste the sacrifice."
Seven bullocks yet unyoked, for Phoebus choose,
And for Diana seven unspotted ewes."
This said, the servants urge the sacred rites;
While to the temple she the prince invites.
A spacious cave within its farmost part,
Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art,
Through the hill's hollow sides, before the place,
A hundred doors a hundred entries grace;
As many voices issue; and the sound
Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound.
"Now to the mouth they come," aloud she cries,
"This is the time, enquire your destinies.
He comes-behold the god!" Thus while she said,
(And shivering at the sacred entry staid)
Her colour changed, her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
Her hair stood up, convulsive rage possessed
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her labouring breast.
Greater than human kind she seemed to look,
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