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

Deep indignation swell’d Saturnia’s heart:
“And must I own,” she said, “my secret smart⁠—
What with more decence were in silence kept,
And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept?
Did god or man your fav’rite son advise,
With war unhop’d the Latians to surprise?
By fate, you boast, and by the gods’ decree,
He left his native land for Italy!
Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, more
Than Heav’n inspir’d, he sought a foreign shore!
Did I persuade to trust his second Troy
To the raw conduct of a beardless boy,
With walls unfinish’d, which himself forsakes,
And thro’ the waves a wand’ring voyage takes?
When have I urg’d him meanly to demand
The Tuscan aid, and arm a quiet land?
Did I or Iris give this mad advice,
Or made the fool himself the fatal choice?
You think it hard, the Latians should destroy
With swords your Trojans, and with fires your Troy!
Hard and unjust indeed, for men to draw
Their native air, nor take a foreign law!
That Turnus is permitted still to live,
To whom his birth a god and goddess give!
But yet is just and lawful for your line
To drive their fields, and force with fraud to join;
Realms, not your own, among your clans divide,
And from the bridegroom tear the promis’d bride;
Petition, while you public arms prepare;
Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war!
’Twas giv’n to you, your darling son to shroud,
To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd,
And, for a man, obtend an empty cloud.
From flaming fleets you turn’d the fire away,
And chang’d the ships to daughters of the sea.
But is my crime⁠—the Queen of Heav’n offends,
If she presume to save her suff’ring friends!
Your son, not knowing what his foes decree,
You say, is absent: absent let him be.
Yours is Cythera, yours the Cyprian tow’rs,
The soft recesses, and the sacred bow’rs.
Why do you then these needless arms prepare,
And thus provoke a people prone to war?
Did I with fire the Trojan town deface,
Or hinder from return your exil’d race?
Was I the cause of mischief, or the man
Whose lawless lust the fatal war began?
Think on whose faith th’ adult’rous youth relied;
Who promis’d, who procur’d, the Spartan bride?
When all th’ united states of Greece combin’d,
To purge the world of the perfidious kind,
Then was your time to fear the Trojan fate:
Your quarrels and complaints are now too late.”

Thus Juno. Murmurs rise, with mix’d applause,
Just as they favour or dislike the cause.
So winds, when yet unfledg’d in woods they lie,
In whispers first their tender voices try,
Then issue on the main with bellowing rage,
And storms to trembling mariners presage.

Then thus to both replied th’ imperial god,
Who shakes heav’n’s axles with his awful nod.
(When he begins, the silent senate stand
With rev’rence, list’ning to the dread command:
The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;
And the hush’d waves lie flatted on the main.)
“Celestials, your attentive ears incline!
Since,” said the god, “the Trojans must not join
In wish’d alliance with the Latian line;
Since endless jarrings and immortal hate
Tend but to discompose our happy state;
The war henceforward be resign’d to fate:
Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;
Equal and unconcern’d I look on all.
Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;
And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.
Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;
And, if she favours those, let those defend:
The Fates will find their way.” The Thund’rer said,
And shook the sacred honours of his head,
Attesting Styx, th’ inviolable flood,
And the black regions of his brother god.
Trembled the poles of heav’n, and earth confess’d the nod.
This end the sessions had: the senate rise,
And to his palace wait their sov’reign thro’ the skies.

Meantime, intent upon their siege, the foes
Within their walls the Trojan host inclose:
They wound, they kill, they watch at ev’ry gate;
Renew the fires, and urge their happy fate.

Th’ Aeneans wish in vain their wanted chief,
Hopeless of flight, more hopeless of relief.
Thin on the tow’rs they stand; and ev’n those few
A feeble, fainting, and dejected crew.
Yet in the face of danger some there stood:
The two bold brothers of Sarpedon’s blood,
Asius and Acmon; both th’ Assaraci;
Young Haemon, and tho’ young, resolv’d to die.
With these were Clarus and Thymoetes join’d;
Tibris and Castor, both of Lycian kind.
From Acmon’s hands a rolling stone there came,
So large, it half deserv’d a mountain’s name:
Strong-sinew’d was the youth, and big of bone;
His brother Mnestheus could not more have done,
Or the great father of th’ intrepid son.
Some firebrands throw, some flights of arrows send;
And some with darts, and some with stones defend.

Amid the press appears the beauteous boy,
The care of Venus, and the hope of Troy.
His lovely face unarm’d, his head was bare;
In ringlets o’er his shoulders hung his hair.
His forehead circled with a diadem;
Distinguish’d from the crowd, he shines a gem,
Enchas’d in