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

Iolas fell, whom not the Grecian pow’rs,
Nor great subverter of the Trojan tow’rs,
Were doom’d to kill, while Heav’n prolong’d his date;
But who can pass the bounds, prefix’d by fate?
In high Lyrnessus, and in Troy, he held
Two palaces, and was from each expell’d:
Of all the mighty man, the last remains
A little spot of foreign earth contains.

And now both hosts their broken troops unite
In equal ranks, and mix in mortal fight.
Seresthus and undaunted Mnestheus join
The Trojan, Tuscan, and Arcadian line:
Sea-born Messapus, with Atinas, heads
The Latin squadrons, and to battle leads.
They strike, they push, they throng the scanty space,
Resolv’d on death, impatient of disgrace;
And, where one falls, another fills his place.

The Cyprian goddess now inspires her son
To leave th’ unfinish’d fight, and storm the town:
For, while he rolls his eyes around the plain
In quest of Turnus, whom he seeks in vain,
He views th’ unguarded city from afar,
In careless quiet, and secure of war.
Occasion offers, and excites his mind
To dare beyond the task he first design’d.
Resolv’d, he calls his chiefs; they leave the fight:
Attended thus, he takes a neighb’ring height;
The crowding troops about their gen’ral stand,
All under arms, and wait his high command.
Then thus the lofty prince: “Hear and obey,
Ye Trojan bands, without the least delay
Jove is with us; and what I have decreed
Requires our utmost vigour, and our speed.
Your instant arms against the town prepare,
The source of mischief, and the seat of war.
This day the Latian tow’rs, that mate the sky,
Shall level with the plain in ashes lie:
The people shall be slaves, unless in time
They kneel for pardon, and repent their crime.
Twice have our foes been vanquish’d on the plain:
Then shall I wait till Turnus will be slain?
Your force against the perjur’d city bend.
There it began, and there the war shall end.
The peace profan’d our rightful arms requires;
Cleanse the polluted place with purging fires.”

He finish’d; and, one soul inspiring all,
Form’d in a wedge, the foot approach the wall.
Without the town, an unprovided train
Of gaping, gazing citizens are slain.
Some firebrands, others scaling ladders bear,
And those they toss aloft, and these they rear:
The flames now launch’d, the feather’d arrows fly,
And clouds of missive arms obscure the sky.
Advancing to the front, the hero stands,
And, stretching out to heav’n his pious hands,
Attests the gods, asserts his innocence,
Upbraids with breach of faith th’ Ausonian prince;
Declares the royal honour doubly stain’d,
And twice the rites of holy peace profan’d.

Dissenting clamours in the town arise;
Each will be heard, and all at once advise.
One part for peace, and one for war contends;
Some would exclude their foes, and some admit their friends.
The helpless king is hurried in the throng,
And, whate’er tide prevails, is borne along.
Thus, when the swain, within a hollow rock,
Invades the bees with suffocating smoke,
They run around, or labour on their wings,
Disus’d to flight, and shoot their sleepy stings;
To shun the bitter fumes in vain they try;
Black vapours, issuing from the vent, involve the sky.

But fate and envious fortune now prepare
To plunge the Latins in the last despair.
The queen, who saw the foes invade the town,
And brands on tops of burning houses thrown,
Cast round her eyes, distracted with her fear⁠—
No troops of Turnus in the field appear.
Once more she stares abroad, but still in vain,
And then concludes the royal youth is slain.
Mad with her anguish, impotent to bear
The mighty grief, she loathes the vital air.
She calls herself the cause of all this ill,
And owns the dire effects of her ungovern’d will;
She raves against the gods; she beats her breast;
She tears with both her hands her purple vest:
Then round a beam a running noose she tied,
And, fasten’d by the neck, obscenely died.

Soon as the fatal news by Fame was blown,
And to her dames and to her daughter known,
The sad Lavinia rends her yellow hair
And rosy cheeks; the rest her sorrow share:
With shrieks the palace rings, and madness of despair.
The spreading rumour fills the public place:
Confusion, fear, distraction, and disgrace,
And silent shame, are seen in ev’ry face.
Latinus tears his garments as he goes,
Both for his public and his private woes;
With filth his venerable beard besmears,
And sordid dust deforms his silver hairs.
And much he blames the softness of his mind,
Obnoxious to the charms of womankind,
And soon seduc’d to change what he so well design’d;
To break the solemn league so long desir’d,
Nor finish what his fates, and those of Troy, requir’d.

Now Turnus rolls aloof o’er empty plains,
And here and there some straggling foes he gleans.
His flying coursers please him less and less,
Asham’d of easy fight and cheap success.
Thus half-contented, anxious in his mind,
The distant cries come driving in the wind,
Shouts from the walls, but shouts in murmurs drown’d;
A jarring mixture, and a boding sound.
“Alas!” said he, “what mean these dismal cries?
What doleful clamours from the town arise?”
Confus’d, he stops, and backward pulls the reins.
She who the driver’s office now sustains,
Replies: “Neglect, my lord, these new alarms;
Here fight, and urge the fortune of your arms:
There want not others to defend the wall.
If by your rival’s hand th’ Italians fall,
So shall your fatal sword his friends oppress,
In honour equal, equal in success.”

To this, the prince: “O sister⁠—for I knew
The peace infring’d proceeded first from you;
I knew you, when you mingled first in fight;
And now in vain you would deceive my sight⁠—
Why, goddess, this unprofitable care?
Who sent you down from heav’n, involv’d in air,
Your share of mortal sorrows to sustain,
And see your brother bleeding on the plain?
For to what pow’r can Turnus have recourse,
Or how resist his fate’s prevailing force?
These eyes beheld Murranus bite the ground:
Mighty the man, and mighty was the wound.
I heard my dearest friend, with dying breath,
My name invoking to revenge his death.
Brave Ufens fell with honour on the place,
To shun the shameful sight of my disgrace.
On earth supine, a manly corpse he lies;
His vest and armour are the victor’s prize.
Then, shall I see