The Aeneid - Публий Марон Вергилий

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rose my stiffen’d hair.

      Then thus the ghost began to soothe my grief

      ‘Nor tears, nor cries, can give the dead relief.

      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,

      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 Creusa weep no more.

      Fear not that I shall watch, with servile shame,

      Th’ imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;

      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.

      “Thus having pass’d the night in fruitless pain,

      I to my longing friends return again,

      Amaz’d th’ augmented number to behold,

      Of men and matrons mix’d, of young and old;

      A wretched exil’d crew together brought,

      With arms appointed, and with treasure fraught,

      Resolv’d, and willing, under my command,

      To run all hazards both of sea and land.

      The Morn began, from Ida, to display

      Her rosy cheeks; and Phosphor led the day:

      Before the gates the Grecians took their post,

      And all pretense of late relief was lost.

      I yield to Fate, unwillingly retire,

      And, loaded, up the hill convey my sire.”

      BOOK III

      “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 assign’d.

      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—the people bold in war;

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

      A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,

      With Troy in friendship and religion join’d.

      I land; with luckless omens then adore

      Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;

      I lay the deep foundations of a wall,

      And Aenos, nam’d from me, the city call.

      To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,

      And all the pow’rs that rising labors aid;

      A bull on Jove’s imperial altar laid.

      Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;

      Sharp myrtles on the sides, and cornels grew.

      There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,

      And shade our altar with their leafy greens,

      I pull’d a plant—with horror I relate

      A prodigy so strange and full of fate.

      The rooted fibers rose, and from the wound

      Black bloody drops distill’d upon the ground.

      Mute and amaz’d, my hair with terror stood;

      Fear shrunk my sinews, and congeal’d my blood.

      Mann’d once again, another plant I try:

      That other gush’d with the same sanguine dye.

      Then, fearing guilt for some offense unknown,

      With pray’rs and vows the Dryads I atone,

      With all the sisters of the woods, and most

      The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,

      That they, or he, these omens would avert,

      Release our fears, and better signs impart.

      Clear’d, as I thought, and fully fix’d at length

      To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:

      I bent my knees against the ground; once more

      The violated myrtle ran with gore.

      Scarce dare I tell the sequel: from the womb

      Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,

      A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renew’d

      My fright, and then these dreadful words ensued:

      ‘Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?

      O spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend!

      Spare to pollute thy pious hands with blood:

      The tears distil not from the wounded wood;

      But ev’ry drop this living tree contains

      Is kindred blood, and ran in Trojan veins.

      O fly from this unhospitable

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