itself will come away spontaneous and easy: otherwise it will not be in your power to master it by any natural strength, or to lop it off by the artificial means of stubborn steel. Besides, the body of your friend lies breathless (whereof you, alas! are not aware), and pollutes the whole shore with the effect of death, while you are prying into the secrets of heaven, and hang lingering at my gate. First convey him to his place of rest, and bury him in the grave. Then bring black cattle: let these be the first sacrifices of expiation. Thus at length you shall have a view of the Stygian groves, realms inaccessible to the living. She said, and, closing her lips, was silent. Eneas, with sorrow in his looks, his eyes fixed on the ground, takes his way, leaving the cave, and musing the dark event in his mind; whom faithful Achates açcompanies, and moves on with equal concern. Many doubts they started between them in the variety of their conversation; who was the lifeless friend designed by the prophetess, what corpse was to be interred. And as they came, they saw Misenus on the dry beach, slain by a base ignoble death; Misenus, a son of Eolus, whom none excelled in rousing warriors by the brazen trumpet, and kindling the rage of war by martial sounds. He had been the companion of great Hector, and about Hector he fought, distinguished both for the use of the clarion and spear. After victorious Achilles had bereaved Hector of life, the valiant hero associated with Dardanian Æneas, following a chief not inferior to the other. But at that time, while madly presumptuous he makes the seas resound with his hollow trumpet, and with bold notes challenges the gods to a trial of skill, Triton, jealous of his honour (if the story be worthy of credit), having inveigled him between two rocks, had overwhelmed him in the foaming billows. Therefore all murmured their lamentations around him with loud noise, especially the pious Æneas: then forthwith they set about the Sibyl's orders in mournful plight, and are emulous to heap up the altar of the funeral-pile with Congerere arboribus, coloque educere certant. Atque hæc ipse suo tristi cum corde volutat, Nec minus interea Misenum in litore Teucri 180 185 190 195 200 205 210 204. Discolor. It varied its hue according to the light in which it was seen. trees, and raise it towards heaven. They repair to an ancient wood, the deep haunts of the savage kind: down drop the firs: the holm crashes, felled by the axes; and the ashen beams and yielding oak are cleft by wedges; down from the mountains they roll the huge wild ashes. Eneas too, in chief amidst these labours, animates his followers, and is arrayed in similar arms. Meanwhile he thus ruminates in his distressed breast, surveying the spacious wood, and thus prays aloud : Would but that golden bough on the tree now present itself to our view in this ample forest! since, Misenus, all that the prophetess declared of thee is true, alas, but too true. Scarcely had he spoken these words, when it chanced that two pigeons, in their airy flight, came directly into the hero's view, and alighted on the verdant ground. Then the exalted hero knows his mother's birds, and rejoicing prays: Oh be my guides, wherever is my way, and steer your course through the air into the groves, where the precious branch overshades the fertile soil. And thou, my goddess-mother, oh be not wanting to me in this my perplexity! Thus having said, he paused, observing what indications they offer, and whither they wing their way. They, feeding and flying by turns, advanced before as far as the eyes of the followers could trace them Iwith their ken. Then, having come to the mouth of noisome Avernus, they mount up swiftly, and, gliding through the pure air, both alight on the wished for place, on that tree from which the particoloured gleam of the gold shone through the branches. As in the woods the misletoe, which springs not from the tree whereon it grows, is usually seen to flourish with new leaves in the cold of winter, and to twine around the tapering trunk with its yellow offspring: such was the appearance of the vegetable gold on the shady holm: in like manner the metallic rind tinkled with every gentle breath of wind. Forthwith Æneas grasps, and eagerly tears off the lingering branch, and bears it to the grotto of the prophetic Sibyl. Meanwhile the Trojans were no less assiduously em Flebant, et cineri ingrato suprema ferebant. 215 220 225 230 Imponit, suaque arma viro, remumque tubamque, His actis, properè exsequitur præcepta Sibyllæ. 235 240 245 215. Ingentem pyram. The larger and higher the funeral pile was raised, the more honourable it was reckoned. ---frondibus atris. As yews, pines, etc. 229. Circumtulit. The construction is circumtulit se, which came to signify to purify, because the priest went round the whole company when he sprinkled them with the aqua lustralis: as in Plautus Amp. Ac. II. Sc. II. 144. ployed in mourning Misenus on the shore, and in paying the last duties to his insensible ungrateful shade. First they rear a vast pile unctuous with pines and split oak, whose sides they interweave with black baleful boughs, and place in the front deadly cypresses, and deck it above with glittering arms. Some get ready warm water, and cauldrons bubbling from the flames; and wash and anoint his cold limbs. They groan in unison: then lay the bewailed body on a couch, and throw over it the purple robes, his wonted apparel. Others bore up the cumbrous bier, a mournful office; and with their faces turned away from the pile, after the manner of their ancestors, under it they held a lighted torch. Amassed together blaze offer. ings of incense, the sacred viands, and whole goblets of oil poured on the pile. After the ashes had sunk down, and the flames relented, they drenched the reliques and soaking embers in wine; and Chorinæus enclosed the collected bones in a brazen urn. Thrice too he made the circuit of the company with holy water, sprinkling them with a gentle dew, and a branch of the lucky olive; and thus he purified them, and pronounced the last farewell. But the pious humane Æneas erects a spacious tomb for the hero, with his arms upon it, and an oar and trumpet, under the brow of an airy mountain, which now from him is called Misenus, and retains a name that will be perpetuated through ages. This done, he speedily executes the Sibyl's injunctions. There stood a cave profound and hideous, with a wide yawning mouth, stony, fenced by a black lake and the gloom of woods; over which none of the flying kind were able to wing their way unhurt, such noxious exhalations, issuing from its grim jaws, ascended to the vaulted skies; for which reason the Greeks called the place by the name of Aornus. Here first the priestess places four bullocks with backs of swarthy hue, and pours wine on their foreheads, and, cropping the topmost hairs between the horns, 245 Summas carpens, etc. This was customary before the sacrifice. The hair was thrown into the fire as the first offering. |