ÆNEÏS

BOOK III.

ARGUMENT.

Eneas proceeds in his relation: he gives an account of the fleet with which he sailed, and the success of his first voyage to Thrace. From thence he directs his course to Delos, and asks the oracle what place the gods had appointed for his habitation? By a mistake of the oracle's answer, he settles in Crete. His household gods give him the true sense of the oracle, in a dream. He follows their advice, and makes the best of his way for Italy. He is cast on several shores, and meets with very surprising adventures, till at length he lands on Sicily, where his father Anchises dies. This is the place which he was sailing from, when the tempest rose, and threw him upon the Carthaginian coast.

WHEN heaven had overturned the Trojan state,
And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate;
When ruined Troy became the Grecians' prey,
And Ilium's lofty towers in ashes lay;
Warned by celestial omens, we retreat,
To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.
Near old Antandros, and at Ida's foot,
The timber of the sacred groves we cut,
And build our fleet-uncertain yet to find
What place the gods for our repose assigned.

Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring.
Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,
When old Anchises summoned all to sea:
The crew my father and the Fates obey.
With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,
And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.
My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,
All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.

Against our coast appears a spacious land,
Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,
(Thracia the name-the people bold in war-
Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)
A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,
With Troy in friendship and religion joined.
I land, with luckless omens; then adore
Their gods, and draw a line along the shore:
I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
And Enos, named from me, the city call.
To Dionæan Venus vows are paid,
And all the powers that rising labours aid;
A bull on Jove's imperial altar laid.
Not far, a rising hillock stood in view ;
Sharp myrtles, on the sides, and cornels
grew.
There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
And shade our altar with their leafy greens,
I pulled a plant-with horror I relate
A prodigy so strange, and full of fate—
The rooted fibres rose; and, from the wound,
Black bloody drops distilled upon the ground.
Mute and amazed, my hair with terror stood;
Fear shrunk my sinews, and congealed my blood.
Manned once again, another plant I try:
That other gushed with the same sanguine die.
Then, fearing guilt for some offence unknown,
With prayers and vows the Dryads I atone,
With all the sisters of the woods, and most
The god of arms, who rules the Thracian coast-

That they, or he, these omens would avert,
Release our fears, and better signs impart.
Cleared, as I thought, and fully fixed at length
To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:
I bent my knees against the ground: once more
The violated myrtle ran with gore.

Scarce dare I tell the sequel: from the womb
Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,
A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renewed

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My fright, and then these dreadful words ensued :-
Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?
O! spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend!
Spare to pollute thy pious hands with blood:
The tears distil not from the wounded wood;
But every drop this living tree contains,
Is kindred blood, and ran in Trojan veins.
O! fly from this inhospitable shore,
Warned by my fate; for I am Polydore !
Here loads of lances, in my blood embrued,
Again shoot upward, by my blood renewed."

My faultering tongue and shivering limbs declare
My horror, and in bristles rose my hair.
When Troy with Grecian arms was closely pent,
Old Priam, fearful of the war's event,
This hapless Polydore to Thracia sent :
Loaded with gold, he sent his darling, far
From noise and tumults, and destructive war,
Committed to the faithless tyrant's care;
Who, when he saw the power of Troy decline,
Forsook the weaker with the strong to join-
Broke every bond of nature and of truth,
And murdered, for his wealth, the royal youth.
O sacred hunger of pernicious gold!
What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?
Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears,
I call my father, and the Trojan peers—

Relate the prodigies of heaven-require
What he commands, and their advice desire.
All vote to leave that execrable shore,
Polluted with the blood of Polydore ;
But, ere we sail, his funeral rites prepare,
Then, to his ghost, a tomb and altars rear.
In mournful pomp the matrons walk the round,
With baleful cypress and blue fillets crowned,
With eyes dejected, and with hair unbound.
Then bowls of tepid milk and blood we pour,
And thrice invoke the soul of Polydore.

Now, when the raging storms no longer reign, But southern gales invite us to the main, We launch our vessels, with a prosperous wind, And leave the cities and the shores behind. An island in the Ægæan main appears : Neptune and watery Doris claim it theirs. It floated once, till Phoebus fixed the sides To rooted earth, and now it braves the tides. Here, borne by friendly winds, we come ashore, With needful ease our weary limbs restore, And the Sun's temple and his town adore.

Anius, the priest and king, with laurel crowned,
His hoary locks with purple fillets bound,
Who saw my sire the Delian shore ascend,
Came forth with eager haste to meet his friend;
Invites him to his palace; and, in sign

Of ancient love, their plighted hands they join.
Then to the temple of the god I went,

And thus, before the shrine, my vows present:~~
Give, O Thymbræus! give a resting place

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To the sad reliques of the Trojan race;

A seat secure, a region of their own,
A lasting empire, and a happier town.

Where shall we fix? where shall our labours end?
Whom shall we follow, and what fate attend?

Let not my prayers a doubtful answer find;

But in clear auguries unveil thy mind."

Scarce had I said: he shook the holy ground,
The laurels, and the lofty hills around;
And from the tripos rushed a bellowing sound.
Prostrate we fell; confessed the present god,
Who gave this answer from his dark abode:-
"Undaunted youths! go, seek that mother earth
From which your ancestors derive their birth.
The soil that sent you forth, her ancient race,
In her old bosom, shall again embrace.

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Through the wide world the Æneian house shall reign,
And children's children shall the crown sustain.'
Thus Phoebus did our future fates disclose:
A mighty tumult, mixed with joy, arose.
All are concerned to know what place the god
Assigned, and where determined our abode.
My father, long revolving in his mind
The race and lineage of the Trojan kind,
Thus answered their demands:-" Ye princes, hear
Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear.
The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,
Sacred of old to Jove's imperial name,

In the mid ocean lies, with large command,
And on its plains a hundred cities stand.
Another Ida rises there, and we

From thence derive our Trojan ancestry.
From thence, as 'tis divulged by certain fame,
To the Rhotean shores old Teucer came;
There fixed, and there the seat of empire chose,
Ere Ilium and the Trojan towers arose.
In humble vales they built their soft abodes,
Till Cybele, the mother of the gods,

With tinkling cymbals charmed the Idæan woods.
She secret rites and ceremonies taught,
And to the yoke the savage lions brought.
Let us the land, which heaven appoints, explore;
Appease the winds, and seek the Gnosian shore.
If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,
The third propitious dawn discovers Crete."