The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse. Virgil

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       Before his fathers' altar-stead and slays him then and there.

      By death of Neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came

       To Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian fields by name,

       And all the land Chaonia, from Chaon of Troy-town;

       And Pergamus and Ilian burg on ridgy steep set down.

       What winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er?

       Or what of Gods hath borne thee on unwitting to our shore?

       What of the boy Ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet?

       Whom unto thee when Troy yet was——340

       The boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her?

       Do him Æneas, Hector gone, father and uncle, stir,

       To valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?'

      Such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain

       Great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh

       Lord Helenus the Priam-born midst mighty company,

       And knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door,

       Though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour.

       So on; a little Troy I see feigned from great Troy of fame,

       A Pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the Xanthus name,350

       On threshold of a Scæan gate I stoop to lay a kiss.

       Soon, too, all Teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss,

       And them the King fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad,

       And they amidmost of the hall the bowls of Bacchus poured,

       The meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand.

      So passed a day and other day, until the gales command

       The sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the South:

       Therewith I speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth:

       'O Troy-born, O Gods' messenger, who knowest Phœbus' will,

       The tripods and the Clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil,360

       And tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing,

       Come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing

       All shrines have said, and all the Gods have bid me follow on

       To Italy, till outland shores, far off, remote were won:

       Alone Celæno, Harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth,

       Unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath,

       And ugly hunger. How may I by early perils fare?

       Or doing what may I have might such toil to overbear?'

      So Helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain,

       Prays peace of Gods, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again,370

       And then with hand he leadeth me, O Phœbus, to thy door,

       My fluttering soul with all thy might of godhead shadowed o'er.

       There forth at last from God-loved mouth the seer this word did send:

      'O Goddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend

       By mightiest bidding, such the lot the King of Gods hath found

       All fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round.

       Few things from many will I tell that thou the outland sea

       May'st sail the safer, and at last make land in Italy;

       The other things the Parcæ still ban Helenus to wot,

       Saturnian Juno's will it is that more he utter not.380

       First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh,

       Thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby,

       Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land;

       And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand.

       On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile,

       And thou must see the nether meres, Ææan Circe's isle,

       Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may'st set down.

       I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown.

       When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh,

       And 'neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie,390

       That e'en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground

       She lieth white, with piglings white their mother's dugs around—

       That earth shall be thy city's place, there rest from toil is stored.

       Nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board,

       The Fates shall find a way thereto; Apollo called shall come.

       But flee these lands of Italy, this shore so near our home,

       That washing of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks;

       For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks.

       There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build;

       And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled400

       With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small,

       Now by that Melibœan duke fenced round with mighty wall.

       Moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay,

       And on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay,

       Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye,

       Lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to God on high

       Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill.

       Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil,

       And let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind.

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