And where Himella's wanton waters play.
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:
The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
And the cold Nursians come to close the rear,
Mix'd with the natives born of Latine blood,
Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
When pale Orion sets in wintry rain;
Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,
Or Lycian fields, when Phœbus burns the skies,
Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around;
Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.
High in his chariot then Halesus came,
A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name:
From Agamemnon born-to Turnus' aid
A thousand men the youthful hero led,
Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown'd,
And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground,
And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,
Cales' and Osca's old inhabitants,
And rough Saticulans, inur'd to wants:
Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
Fasten'd with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.
Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear;
And on their warding arm light bucklers bear.
Nor Ebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
From nymph Semethis and old Telon sprung,
Who then in Teleboan Capri reign'd;
But that short isle th' ambitious youth disdain'd,
And o'er Campania stretch'd his ample sway,
Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea;
O'er Batulum, and where Abella sees,
From her high tow'rs, the harvest of her trees.
And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold;
Sling weighty stones, when from afar they fight;
Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light.
Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went,
And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent.
The rude Equicolæ his rule obey'd;
Hunting their sport, and plund'ring was their trade.
In arms they plow'd, to battle still prepar'd:
Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.
Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,
By King Archippus sent to Turnus' aid,
And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head.
His wand and holy words, the viper's rage,
And venom'd wounds of serpents could assuage.
He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep
Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,
To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart:
Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods
In sighs remurmur'd to the Fucine floods.
The son of fam'd Hippolytus was there,
Fam'd as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;
Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore,
Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame,
In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.
Hippolytus, as old records have said,
Was by his stepdam sought to share her bed;
But, when no female arts his mind could move,
She turn'd to furious hate her impious love.
Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,
Another's crimes th' unhappy hunter bore,
Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore.
But chaste Diana, who his death deplor'd,
With Esculapian herbs his life restor❜d.
Then Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,
The dead inspir'd with vital breath again,
Struck to the center, with his flaming dart,
Th' unhappy founder of the godlike art.
But Trivia kept in secret shades alone
Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;
And call'd him Virbius in th' Egerian grove,
Where then he liv'd obscure, but safe from Jove.
For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood.
Are coursers driv'n, who shed their master's blood,
Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
His son, the second Virbius, yet retain'd
His father's art, and warrior steeds he rein'd.
Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode:
A triple pile of plumes his crest adorn'd,
On which with belching flames Chimæra burn'd:
The more the kindled combat rises high'r,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire.
Fair lo grac'd his shield; but Io now
With horns exalted stands, and seems to low-
A noble charge! Her keeper by her side,
To watch her walks, his hundred eyes applied;
And on the brims her sire, the wat'ry god,
Roll'd from a silver urn his crystal flood.
A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields
With swords, and pointed spears, and clatt'ring shields;
Of Argives, and of old Sicanian bands,
And those who plow the rich Rutulian lands;
Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
And the proud Labicans, with painted shields,
And those who near Numician streams reside,
And those whom Tiber's holy forests hide,
Or Circe's hills from the main land divide;
Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
Or the black water of Pomptina stands.
Last, from the Volscians fair Camilla came,
And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame;
Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd,
She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
Mix'd with the first, the fierce virago fought,
Sustain'd the toils of arms, the danger sought,
Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along,
Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung.
Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,
Where'er she passes, fix their wond'ring eyes:
Longing they look, and, gaping at the sight,
Devour her o'er and o'er with vast delight;
Her purple habit sits with such a grace
On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her face;
Her head with ringlets of her hair is crown'd,
And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
She shakes her myrtle jav'lin; and, behind,
Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.
THE EIGHTH BOOK
OF THE ÆNEIS
THE ARGUMENT.-The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible preparations. Turnus sends to Diomedes. Æneas goes in person to beg succors from Evander and the Tuscans. Evander receives him kindly, furnishes him with men, and sends his son Pallas with him. Vulcan, at the request of Venus, makes arms for her son Æneas, and draws on his shield the most memorable actions of his posterity.
THEN Turnus had assembled all his pow'rs,
His standard planted on Laurentum's tow'rs;
When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,
Had giv'n the signal of approaching war,
Had rous'd the neighing steeds to scour the fields,
While the fierce riders clatter'd on their shields;
Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
To join th' allies, and headlong rush to war.
Fierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,
With bold Mezentius, who blasphem'd aloud.
These thro' the country took their wasteful course,
The fields to forage, and to gather force.
Then Venulus to Diomede they send,
To beg his aid Ausonia to defend,
Declare the common danger, and inform
The Grecian leader of the growing storm:
Eneas, landed on the Latian coast,
With banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,
Yet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,
And claim'd a title from the gods and fate;
What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name.
What he design'd, what mischief might arise,
If fortune favor'd his first enterprise,
Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
And common interest, was involv'd in theirs.
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,
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