Thee, god, no face of danger could affright,
Not huge Typhoeus, nor the unnumbered snake
Increased 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 performed, the cheerful train retire.
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire
The Trojan passed, the city to survey,
And pleasing talk beguiled 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 fauns, and savage men who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak;
Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of labouring oxen nor the shining share:
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gained to spare.
Their exercise the chase; the running flood
Supplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food
Then Saturn came, who fled the power of Jove,
Robbed of his realms and banished from above.
The men dispersed on hills to towns he brought,
And laws ordained and civil customs taught;
And Latium called 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 derived their name.
A more degenerate and discoloured age
Succeeded this with avarice and rage.
The Ausonians then and bold Sicanians came,
And Saturn's empire often changed the name.
Then kings, gigantic Tibris, and the rest,
With arbitrary sway the land oppressed;
For Tiber's flood was Albula before;
Till, from the tyrant's fate his name it borc.
I last arrived, driven from my native home,
By fortune's power, and fate's resistless doom.
Long tossed on seas, I sought this happy land;
Warned by my mother nymph, and clled by Heaven's
Thus, walking on, he spoke, and showed the gate,
Since called Carmental by the Roman state,
Where stood an altar sacred to the name
Of old Carmenta, the prophetic dame,
Who to her son foretold the Enean race,
Sublime in fame, and Rome's imperial place;
Then shows the forest, which in after-times
Fierce Romulus, for perpetuated crimes,
A sacred refuge made; with this the shrine
Where Pan below the rock had rites divine.
Then tells of Argus' death, his murdered guest,
Whose grave and tomb his innocence attest.
Thence to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads;
Now roofed with gold, then thatched with homely reeds.
A reverent fear (such superstition reigns
Among the rude) even then possessed the swains ;
Some god they knew, what god they could not tell,
Did there amidst the sacred horror dwell.
The Arcadians thought him Jove, and said they saw
The mighty thunderer with majestic awe,
Who shook his shield and dealt his bolts around,
And scattered 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 viewed the ground of Rome's litigious hall;
Once oxen lowed where now the lawyers bawl.
Then, stooping, through the narrow gate they pressed,
When thus the king bespoke his Trojan guest:
"Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,
Received 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 had shed her silver dews around,
And with her sable wings embraced the ground,
When Love's fair goddess, anxious for her son
(New tumults rising, and new wars begun),
Couched with her husband, in his golden bed,
With these alluring words invokes his aid,
And, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,
Inspires cach accent with the charms of love :
"While cruel fate conspired with Grecian powers,
To level with the ground the Trojan towers ;
I asked not aid the unhappy to restore;
Nor did the succour of thy skill implore.
Nor urged the labours of my lord in vain ;
A sinking empire longer to sustain,
Though much I owed to Priam's house, and more
The danger of Encas did deplore.
But now by Jove's command, and Fate's decree,
His race is doomed 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 combined
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 required my helpful hand,
The artificer and art you might command
To labour arms for Troy; nor Jove nor Fate
Confined 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 cager of her charms,
He snatched the willing goddess to his arms,
Till in her lap infused he lay possessed
Of full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.
Now when the night her middle race had rode.
And his first slumber had refreshed 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-opened eyes,
They ply the distaff by the winking 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 concerned, 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 Lipare,
Raised high on smoking rocks, and deep below
In hollow caves the fires of Etna 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 tire 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,
Consumed on mortals with prodigious waste;
Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,
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 repair
His broken axle-trees, and blunted war:
And send him forth again with furbished 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 tried:
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 cager haste divide.
A flood of molten silver, brass, and gold,
And deadly steel in the large furnace rolled;
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 drowned;
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 the Eolian 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 ankles; sandals sheathe 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 pressed;
Thus clad, and guarded thus, he seeks his kingly guest.
Mindful of promised 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;
The Arcadian first, their former talk renews :
"Undaunted prince, I never can believe
The Trojan einpire lost while you survive.
Command the 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,
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