Than all I felt from ruin'd Troy before. Stung with my loss, and raving with despair,

Abandoning my now forgotten care,
Of counsel, comfort, and of hope bereft,
My sire, my son, my country gods I left.
In shining armor once again I sheathe
My limbs, not feeling wounds, nor fearing
death.

1019

Then headlong to the burning walls I run, And seek the danger I was forc'd to shun. I tread my former tracks; thro' night explore

Each passage, ev'ry street I cross'd before. All things were full of horror and affright, And dreadful ev'n the silence of the night. Then to my father's house I make repair, With some small glimpse of hope to find her there.

Instead of her, the cruel Greeks I met; The house was fill'd with foes, with flames beset.

Driv'n on the wings of winds, whole sheets of fire,

1030

Thro' air transported, to the roofs aspire. From thence to Priam's palace I resort, And search the citadel and desart court. Then, unobserv'd, I pass by Juno's church: A guard of Grecians had possess'd the porch; There Phoenix and Ulysses watch the prey, And thither all the wealth of Troy convey: The spoils which they from ransack'd houses brought,

And golden bowls from burning altars caught,

The tables of the gods, the purple vests, 1040 The people's treasure, and the pomp of priests.

A rank of wretched youths, with pinion'd

Desist, my much-lov'd lord, t' indulge your pain;

You bear no more than what the gods ordain.

My fates permit me not from hence to fly; Nor he, the great controller of the sky. Long wand'ring ways for you the pow'rs decree;

On land hard labors, and a length of sea.
Then, after many painful years are past, 1060
On Latium's happy shore you shall be cast,
Where gentle Tiber from his bed beholds
The flow'ry meadows, and the feeding folds.
There end your toils; and there your fates
provide

A quiet kingdom, and a royal bride:
There fortune shall the Trojan line restore,
And you for lost Creisa weep no more.
Fear not that I shall watch, with servile
shame,

Th' imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;

1071

Or, stooping to the victor's lust, disgrace
My goddess mother, or my royal race.
And now, farewell! The parent of the gods
Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:
I trust our common issue to your care.'
She said, and gliding pass'd unseen in air.
I strove to speak: but horror tied my
tongue;

And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,

And, thrice deceiv'd, on vain embraces hung.

Light as an empty dream at break of day, Or as a blast of wind, she rush'd away. 1080 "Thus having pass'd the night in fruitless

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE ENEIS

THE ARGUMENT

Eneas proceeds in his relation: he gives an account of the fleet with which he sail'd, 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 Heav'n had overturn'd the Trojan

state

And Priam's throne, by too severe a fate; When ruin'd Troy became the Grecians' prey,

And Ilium's lofty tow'rs in ashes lay;
Warn'd 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 as-
sign'd.

10

Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring

Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,

When old Anchises summon'd 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

war;

20

the people bold in

Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,)

Committed to the faithless tyrant's care; Who, when he saw the pow'r of Troy decline,

Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join;

Broke ev'ry bond of nature and of truth, And murder'd, for his wealth, the royal youth.

80

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 Heav'n, require
What he commands, and their advice de-
sire.

All vote to leave that execrable shore,
Polluted with the blood of Polydore;
But, ere we sail, his fun'ral rites prepare,
Then, to his ghost, a tomb and altars rear.
In mournful pomp the matrons walk the
round,

90

With baleful cypress and blue fillets crown'd,

With eyes dejected, and with hair un

bound.

Prostrate we fell; confess'd 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

130

In her old bosom shall again embrace. Thro' the wide world th' Æneian house shall reign,

Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear. The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,

141

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 't is divulg'd by certain
fame,

To the Rhotean shores old Teucrus came; There fix'd, and there the seat of empire chose,

Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow'rs arose. In humble vales they built their soft abodes,

Till Cybele, the mother of the gods, With tinkling cymbals charm'd th' Idæan woods.

150

She secret rites and ceremonies taught,
And to the yoke the salvage lions brought.
Let us the land which Heav'n appoints, ex-
plore;

Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.

160

If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,
The third propitious dawn discovers Crete.'
Thus having said, the sacrifices, laid
On smoking altars, to the gods he paid:
A bull, to Neptune an oblation due,
Another bull to bright Apollo slew;

A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please,

And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas. Ere this, a flying rumor had been spread That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled, Expell'd and exil'd; that the coast was free Erom foreign or domestic enemy.

"We leave the Delian ports, and put to

We pass the scatter'd isles of Cyclades, That, scarce distinguish'd, seem to stud the

seas.

The shouts of sailors double near the shores; They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars.

'All hands aloft! for Crete ! for Crete !' they cry,

And swiftly thro' the foamy billows fly.
Full on the promis'd land at length we bore,
With joy descending on the Cretan shore. 181
With eager haste a rising town I frame,
Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name:
The name itself was grateful; I exhort
To found their houses, and erect a fort.
Our ships are haul'd upon the yellow
strand;

The youth begin to till the labor'd land;
And I myself new marriages promote,
Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot;
When rising vapors choke the wholesome
air,

190

And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year;

The trees devouring caterpillars burn; Parch'd was the grass, and blighted was the

And to what clime our weary course direct. ""T was night, when ev'ry creature, void of cares,

The common gift of balmy slumber shares: The statues of my gods (for such they seem'd),

Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem'd,

Before me stood, majestically bright,
Full in the beams of Phoebe's ent'ring light.
Then thus they spoke, and eas'd my
troubled mind:

'What from the Delian god thou go'st to find,

He tells thee here, and sends us to relate. Those pow'rs are we, companions of thy

fate,

210

Who from the burning town by thee were brought,

night;

230

I saw, I knew their faces, and descried,
In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied;)
I started from my couch; a clammy sweat
On all my limbs and shiv'ring body sate.
To heav'n I lift my hands with pious haste,
And sacred incense in the flames I cast.
Thus to the gods their perfect honors done,
More cheerful, to my good old sire I run,
And tell the pleasing news.
In little space
He found his error of the double race;
Not, as before he deem'd, deriv'd from
Crete;

240

At length I land upon the Strophades,
Safe from the danger of the stormy seas.
Those isles are compass'd by th' Ionian
main,

The dire abode where the foul Harpies reign,
Forc'd by the winged warriors to repair
To their old homes, and leave their costly
fare.

Monsters more fierce offended Heav'n ne'er

From hell's abyss, for human punishment: With virgin faces, but with wombs ob

scene,

Foul paunches, and with ordure still unclean;

With claws for hands, and looks for ever

lean.

"We landed at the port, and soon beheld Fat herds of oxen graze the flow'ry field, And wanton goats without a keeper stray'd. With weapons we the welcome prey invade,