The Aeneid by Virgil

Author:Virgil
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: ManyBooks.net

Amid the troops, and like the leading god,

High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode:

A triple of plumes his crest adorn'd,

On which with belching flames Chimaera burn'd:

The more the kindled combat rises high'r,

The more with fury burns the blazing fire.

Fair Io grac'd his shield; but Io now

With horns exalted stands, and seems to lowA

noble charge! Her keeper by her side,

To watch her walks, his hundred eyes applied;

And on the brims her sire, the wat'ry god,

Roll'd from a silver urn his crystal flood.

A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields

With swords, and pointed spears, and clatt'ring shields;

Of Argives, and of old Sicanian bands,

And those who plow the rich Rutulian lands;

Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,

And the proud Labicans, with painted shields,

And those who near Numician streams reside,

And those whom Tiber's holy forests hide,

Or Circe's hills from the main land divide;

Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,

Or the black water of Pomptina stands.

Last, from the Volscians fair Camilla came,

And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame;

Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill'd,

She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.

Mix'd with the first, the fierce virago fought,

Sustain'd the toils of arms, the danger sought,

Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain,

Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain:

She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along,

Her flying feet unbath'd on billows hung.

Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,

Where'er she passes, fix their wond'ring eyes:

Longing they look, and, gaping at the sight,

Devour her o'er and o'er with vast delight;

Her purple habit sits with such a grace

On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her face;

Her head with ringlets of her hair is crown'd,

And in a golden caul the curls are bound.

She shakes her myrtle jav'lin; and, behind,

Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.

BOOK VIII

When Turnus had assembled all his pow'rs,

His standard planted on Laurentum's tow'rs;

When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,

Had giv'n the signal of approaching war,

Had rous'd the neighing steeds to scour the fields,

While the fierce riders clatter'd on their shields;

Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare

To join th' allies, and headlong rush to war.

Fierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,

With bold Mezentius, who blasphem'd aloud.

These thro' the country took their wasteful course,

The fields to forage, and to gather force.

Then Venulus to Diomede they send,

To beg his aid Ausonia to defend,

Declare the common danger, and inform

The Grecian leader of the growing storm:

Aeneas, landed on the Latian coast,

With banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,

Yet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,

And claim'd a title from the gods and fate;

What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,

And how they spread his formidable name.

What he design'd, what mischief might arise,

If fortune favor'd his first enterprise,

Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,

And common interest, was involv'd in theirs.

While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,

The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,

Beholds the tempest which his foes prepare.

This way and that he turns his anxious mind;

Thinks, and rejects the counsels he design'd;

Explores himself in vain, in ev'ry part,

And gives no rest to his distracted heart.

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