Corporeæ excedunt pestes; penitusque necesse est Quisque suos patimur Manes (exinde per amplum Nunc age, Dardaniam prolem quæ deinde sequatur Gloria, qui maneant Italâ de gente nepotes, 740 745 750 755 760 765 743. Quisque suos patimur Manes. The construction is, Omnes patimur manes, (i. e. patimur supplicium per manes,) quisque patitur suos. As the ghosts of the dead were believed to haunt the living who had injured them, the word Manes came to signify the tormenting demons of the other world, as Georg. iv. 489. 745. Donec longa. The translator is of opinion that the order of this passage is inverted; it is therefore translated as he thought it ought to stand. 763. Postuma proles. Postumus is sometimes the same with postremus, and that must be the sense of it here. nor all corporeal stains, are quite removed from the unhappy beings; and it is absolutely unavoidable that many vicious habits, which have long grown up with the soul, should be strangely confirmed and riveted therein. Therefore are they afflicted with pains, and pay the penalties of their former ills. Some, hung on high, are spread out to whiten in the empty winds; in others the guilt not done away is washed out in a vast watery abyss, or burned away in fire. We have each of us a dæmon, from whom we suffer, till length of time, after the fixed period is elapsed, hath done away the inherent stains, and hath left celestial reason pure from all irregular passions, and the soul, that spark of heavenly fire, in its original purity and brightness, simple and unmixed: then are we conveyed into Elysium, and we, who are the happy few, possess the fields of bliss. All these souls whom you see, after they have rolled away a thousand years, are summoned forth by the god in a great body to the river Lethe; to the intent that, losing memory of the past, they may revisit the upper regions, and again become willing to return into bodies. Anchises thus spoke; and leads his son, together with the Sibyl, into the midst of the assembly and noisy throng; thence chooses a rising ground, whence he may survey them all as they stand opposite to him in a long row, and discern their looks as they approach. Now mark, I will explain to you what glory shall henceforth attend the Trojan race, what descendants await them of the Italian nation, souls of distinguished worth, and who shall succeed to our name; yourself too I will instruct in your particular fate. See you that youth who leans on his pointless spear? He by destiny holds a station nearest to the regions of light; he shall ascend to the upper world the first of your race who shall have a mixture of Italian blood in his veins, Sylvius, an Alban name, your last issue; whom late your consort Lavinia shall in the woods bring forth to you in your advanced age, himself a king, and the father of kings; in whom our line shall reign over Alba Longa. The Proximus ille, Procas, Trojanæ gloria gentis; 770 780 785 Pometios, Castrumque Inui, Bolamque, Coramque. 775 790 795 772. Umbrata, etc. The civic crown was conferred on one who had saved a Roman citizen in battle. 792. Aurea condet secula. This refers to the universal peace which Augustus established in the empire, A. U. C. 725. next is Procas, the glory of the Trojan nation; then Capys and Numitor follow, and Eneas Sylvius, who shall represent thee in name, equally distinguished for piety and arms, if ever he receive the crown of Alba. See what brave youths are these, what manly force they show! and bear their temples shaded with a civic crown of oak; these to thy honour shall build Nomentum, Gabii, and the city Fidena; these on the mountains shall raise the Collatine towers, Pometia, the fort of Inuus, Bola, and Cora. These shall then be famous names; now they are lands nameless and obscure. Farther, martial Romulus, whom Ilia of the line of Assaracus shall bear, shall associate with his grandsire Numitor. See you not how the double plumes stand on his head erect, and how the Father of the gods himself already marks him out with his distinguished honours? Lo, my son, under his auspicious influence Rome, that city of renown shall measure her dominion by the earth, and her valour by the skies, and that one city shall for herself wall around seven strong hills, happy in a race of heroes; clothed with such majesty as mother Berecynthia displays, when, crowned with turrets, she rides in her chariot through the Phrygian towns, joyful in a progeny of gods, and embraces a hundred grandchildren, all inhabitants of heaven, all seated in the high celestial abodes. This way now bend both your eyes; view this lineage, and your own Romans. This is Cæsar, and these are the whole race of lülus, who shall one day rise to the spacious axle of the sky. This, this is the man whom you have often heard promised to you, Augustus Cæsar, the offspring of a god; who once more shall establish the golden age in Latium, through those lands where Saturn reigned of old; and shall extend his empire over the Garamantes and Indians: their land lies without the signs of the zodiac, beyond the sun's annual course, where Atlas, supporting heaven on his shoulders, turns the axle studded with flaming stars. Against his approach even now both the Caspian realms and the land about the Palus Mæotis are dreadfully dismayed at the responses of the Et septemgemini turbant trepida ostia Nili. Quis procul ille autem ramis insignis olivæ, 800 805 810 815 820 825 830 810. Regis Romani. Numa Pompilius, who lived eighty years, of which he reigned forty-three. 820. Natosque pater, etc. See Livy, lib. ii. 5. 831. Gener, etc. Pompey, whose auxiliary troops were chiefly Asiatics. |