The Aeneid, Virgil [ebook audio reader .txt] 📗

“ ‘Think it not loss of time a while to stay,
Tho’ thy companions chide thy long delay;
Tho’ summon’d to the seas, tho’ pleasing gales
Invite thy course, and stretch thy swelling sails:
But beg the sacred priestess to relate
With willing words, and not to write thy fate.
The fierce Italian people she will show,
And all thy wars, and all thy future woe,
And what thou may’st avoid, and what must undergo.
She shall direct thy course, instruct thy mind,
And teach thee how the happy shores to find.
This is what Heav’n allows me to relate:
Now part in peace; pursue thy better fate,
And raise, by strength of arms, the Trojan state.’

“This when the priest with friendly voice declar’d,
He gave me license, and rich gifts prepar’d:
Bounteous of treasure, he supplied my want
With heavy gold, and polish’d elephant;
Then Dodonaean cauldrons put on board,
And ev’ry ship with sums of silver stor’d.
A trusty coat of mail to me he sent,
Thrice chain’d with gold, for use and ornament;
The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest,
That flourish’d with a plume and waving crest.
Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;
And large recruits he to my navy sends:
Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;
Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.
Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,
Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales.

“The prophet bless’d the parting crew, and last,
With words like these, his ancient friend embrac’d:
‘Old happy man, the care of gods above,
Whom heav’nly Venus honour’d with her love,
And twice preserv’d thy life, when Troy was lost,
Behold from far the wish’d Ausonian coast:
There land; but take a larger compass round,
For that before is all forbidden ground.
The shore that Phoebus has design’d for you,
At farther distance lies, conceal’d from view.
Go happy hence, and seek your new abodes,
Blest in a son, and favour’d by the gods:
For I with useless words prolong your stay,
When southern gales have summon’d you away.’

“Nor less the queen our parting thence deplor’d,
Nor was less bounteous than her Trojan lord.
A noble present to my son she brought,
A robe with flow’rs on golden tissue wrought,
A phrygian vest; and loads with gifts beside
Of precious texture, and of Asian pride.
‘Accept,’ she said, ‘these monuments of love,
Which in my youth with happier hands I wove:
Regard these trifles for the giver’s sake;
’Tis the last present Hector’s wife can make.
Thou call’st my lost Astyanax to mind;
In thee his features and his form I find:
His eyes so sparkled with a lively flame;
Such were his motions; such was all his frame;
And ah! had Heav’n so pleas’d, his years had been the same.’

“With tears I took my last adieu, and said:
‘Your fortune, happy pair, already made,
Leaves you no farther wish. My diff’rent state,
Avoiding one, incurs another fate.
To you a quiet seat the gods allow:
You have no shores to search, no seas to plow,
Nor fields of flying Italy to chase:
(Deluding visions, and a vain embrace!)
You see another Simoïs, and enjoy
The labour of your hands, another Troy,
With better auspice than her ancient tow’rs,
And less obnoxious to the Grecian pow’rs.
If e’er the gods, whom I with vows adore,
Conduct my steps to Tiber’s happy shore;
If ever I ascend the Latian throne,
And build a city I may call my own;
As both of us our birth from Troy derive,
So let our kindred lines in concord live,
And both in acts of equal friendship strive.
Our fortunes, good or bad, shall be the same:
The double Troy shall differ but in name;
That what we now begin may never end,
But long to late posterity descend.’

“Near the Ceraunian rocks our course we bore;
The shortest passage to th’ Italian shore.
Now had the sun withdrawn his radiant light,
And hills were hid in dusky shades of night:
We land, and, on the bosom of the ground,
A safe retreat and a bare lodging found.
Close by the shore we lay; the sailors keep
Their watches, and the rest securely sleep.
The night, proceeding on with silent pace,
Stood in her noon, and view’d with equal face
Her steepy rise and her declining race.
Then wakeful Palinurus rose, to spy
The face of heav’n, and the nocturnal sky;
And listen’d ev’ry breath of air to try;
Observes the stars, and notes their sliding course,
The Pleiads, Hyads, and their wat’ry force;
And both the Bears is careful to behold,
And bright Orion, arm’d with burnish’d gold.
Then, when he saw no threat’ning tempest nigh,
But a sure promise of a settled sky,
He gave the sign to weigh; we break our sleep,
Forsake the pleasing shore, and plow the deep.

“And now the rising morn with rosy light
Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight;
When we from far, like bluish mists, descry
The hills, and then the plains, of Italy.
Achates first pronounc’d the joyful sound;
Then, ‘Italy!’ the cheerful crew rebound.
My sire Anchises crown’d a cup with wine,
And, off’ring, thus implor’d the pow’rs divine:
‘Ye gods, presiding over lands and seas,
And you who raging winds and waves appease,
Breathe on our swelling sails a prosp’rous wind,
And smooth our passage to the port assign’d!’
The gentle gales their flagging force renew,
And now the happy harbour is in view.
Minerva’s temple then salutes our sight,
Plac’d, as a landmark, on the mountain’s height.
We furl our sails, and turn the prows to shore;
The curling waters round the galleys roar.
The land lies open to the raging east,
Then, bending like a bow, with rocks compress’d,
Shuts out the storms; the winds and waves complain,
And vent their malice on the cliffs in vain.
The port lies hid within; on either side
Two tow’ring rocks the narrow mouth divide.
The temple, which aloft we view’d before,
To distance flies, and seems to shun the shore.
Scarce landed, the first omens I beheld
Were four white steeds that cropp’d the flow’ry field.
‘War, war is threaten’d from this foreign ground,’
My father cried, ‘where warlike steeds are found.
Yet, since reclaim’d to chariots they submit,
And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit,
Peace may succeed to war.’ Our way we bend
To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend;
There prostrate to the fierce virago pray,
Whose temple was the landmark of our way.
Each with a Phrygian mantle veil’d his