Ascanius puer, et nequicquam obsessa juventus. 605 610 615 620 625 630 608. Ut rebare. This is plainly an irony, as appears both from the turn of the sentence and the strain of Juno's answer. 612. Pulcherrime signifies, accomplished in virtue and all the beauties of the mind, as well as in outward beauty. 617. Pio. He was descended from the gods. the youth in vain blocked up, sally forth and quit the camp. Meanwhile Jupiter, of his own free motion, thus addresses Juno: My sister, and my dearest consort both! it is Venus, as you alleged, who supports the Trojan powers; nor do you err in your judgment; no active hands for war have the men themselves, no souls courageous or patient of danger. To whom Juno, all submission, says, My lord, in whom the perfection of beauty dwells, why dost thon tease me oppressed with anguish, and dreading thy severe mandates? Had I that influence over your affection, which once I had, and which it became me to have, thou the Omnipotent couldst not surely refuse me this; but I might have it in my power both to rescue Turnus from the fight, and preserve him in safety for his father Daunus. Now let him die, and glut the vengeance of the Trojans with his pious blood: yet from our stock he derives his name, and Pilumnus is his father in the fourth degree: and often with liberal hand and many offerings has he heaped thy courts. To whom the sovereign of the ethereal heaven thus briefly speaks: If you plead for a respite from present death, and a breathing-time to the short-lived youth, and if it be thy will that I should settle it thus; bear off Turnus by flight, and save him from impending fate. Thus far to indulge thee is allowed. But if any higher favour be couched under these petitions, and you imagine that the whole face of the war is to be shifted or reversed, you feed yourself with empty hopes. To whom Juno replies with tears: What if thou shouldst grant with thy heart what in words thou declinest, and this life to Turnus were to be continued fixed by thy decree? Now a woful catastrophe awaits the guiltless youth, or vain are my pretensions to the knowledge of futurity: but Oh that I may rather be with groundless fears misled, and that thou, to whom the power belongs, mayest alter thy purposes for the better! When these words she had pronounced, forthwith she shot down from the lofty sky arrayed in a cloud, driving Misit, agens hiemem nimbo succincta per auras, 635 Dat sine mente sonum, gressusque effingit euntis: 640 At primas læta ante acies exultat imago, Instat cui Turnus, stridentemque eminus hastam 645. Conjicit illa dato vertit vestigia tergo. Tum vero Ænean aversum ut cedere Turnus Credidit, atque animo spem turbidus hausit inanem, 650 655 660 665 652. Nec ferre, etc. A poctical phrase denoting disappointment. storm and tempest through the air; and sought the Trojan army and Latin camp. Then of a hollow cloud, strange monster to behold! the goddess, in the shape of Æneas, dresses up with Trojan amour an airy powerless phantom, and imitates to the life both his shield and the crested helmet of his divine head; gives it empty words, and gives it sound without sense, and counterfeits the hero's gait as he walks: such as those forms which after death are said to flutter about, or those dreams which mock the senses locked in sleep. But the phantom frisky exults before the foremost ranks, and the hero with darts provokes, and with the tongue defies: on whom Turnus presses, and at a distance hurls a hissing spear: the spectre, wheeling about, turned its steps. But then, as soon as Turnus imagined that Eneas with his back turned was giving ground, and boisterous in soul drank in illusive hope, he cried out, Eneas, whither dost thou fly? Desert not thy plighted nuptials: by this right-hand shall the settlement be given you in quest of which you have traversed the seas. Thus vociferating, he pursues him, and brandishes his naked sword; nor sees that the winds bear his boasted joys away. By chance there stood a ship adjoining to the margin of a steep rock with extended ladders, and a bridge prepared, in which king Osinius had been wafted from the Clusian coasts. Hither in fearful haste the image of Æneas flying throws itself into a hiding-place: and Turnus with no less speed pursues; surmounts all obstacles, and overleaps the lofty bridges. Scarcely had he reached the prow, when Saturnia bursts the cable, and over the rolling waves hurries the vessel torn from the shore away. But him absent Æneas with impatience to the combat seeks; and many a hero whom he met, he dispatches to the shades below. Then the fleeting image now no further concealment seeks, but soaring aloft blended itself with a dusky cloud; when in the meantime the whirlwind drives Turnus on the mid ocean. Back on the shore he casts his eyes quite at a loss, and thankless for the preservation of his life, and both hands Et duplices cum voce manus ad sidera tendit: Quò feror? unde abii ? quæ me fuga, quemve reducet ? 670 685 690 At Jovis interea monitis Mezentius ardens Succedit pugnæ, Teucrosque invadit ovantes. Concurrunt Tyrrhenæ acies, atque omnibus uni, Uni odiisque viro telisque frequentibus instant. Ille, velut rupes, vastum quæ prodit in æquor, Obvia ventorum furiis, expostaque ponto, Vim cunctam atque minas perfert coelique marisque, 695 Ipsa immota manens. Prolem Dolicaonis Hebrum Sternit humi; cum quo Latagum Palmumque fugacem; Sed Latagum saxo, atque ingenti fragmine montis, 687. Fluctu secundo. Literally, the waves being prosperous, i. c. the motion of the waves, instead of opposing, carried the vessel for ward; which is saying, in other words, that the wind was for him). |