ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
.
Читать онлайн.
Thus while he dealt it round, the pious chief
With cheerful words allay’d the common grief:
“Endure, and conquer! Jove will soon dispose
To future good our past and present woes.
With me, the rocks of Scylla you have tried;
Th’ inhuman Cyclops and his den defied.
What greater ills hereafter can you bear?
Resume your courage and dismiss your care,
An hour will come, with pleasure to relate
Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.
Thro’ various hazards and events, we move
To Latium and the realms foredoom’d by Jove.
Call’d to the seat (the promise of the skies)
Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise,
Endure the hardships of your present state;
Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.”
These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart;
His outward smiles conceal’d his inward smart.
The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,
The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste.
Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;
The limbs, yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;
Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.
Stretch’d on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine.
Their hunger thus appeas’d, their care attends
The doubtful fortune of their absent friends:
Alternate hopes and fears their minds possess,
Whether to deem ’em dead, or in distress.
Above the rest, Aeneas mourns the fate
Of brave Orontes, and th’ uncertain state
Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus.
The day, but not their sorrows, ended thus.
When, from aloft, almighty Jove surveys
Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas,
At length on Libyan realms he fix’d his eyes—
Whom, pond’ring thus on human miseries,
When Venus saw, she with a lowly look,
Not free from tears, her heav’nly sire bespoke:
“O King of Gods and Men! whose awful hand
Disperses thunder on the seas and land,
Disposing all with absolute command;
How could my pious son thy pow’r incense?
Or what, alas! is vanish’d Troy’s offense?
Our hope of Italy not only lost,
On various seas by various tempests toss’d,
But shut from ev’ry shore, and barr’d from ev’ry coast.
You promis’d once, a progeny divine
Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line,
In after times should hold the world in awe,
And to the land and ocean give the law.
How is your doom revers’d, which eas’d my care
When Troy was ruin’d in that cruel war?
Then fates to fates I could oppose; but now,
When Fortune still pursues her former blow,
What can I hope? What worse can still succeed?
What end of labors has your will decreed?
Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts,
Could pass secure, and pierce th’ Illyrian coasts,
Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves
And thro’ nine channels disembogues his waves.
At length he founded Padua’s happy seat,
And gave his Trojans a secure retreat;
There fix’d their arms, and there renew’d their name,
And there in quiet rules, and crown’d with fame.
But we, descended from your sacred line,
Entitled to your heav’n and rites divine,
Are banish’d earth; and, for the wrath of one,
Remov’d from Latium and the promis’d throne.
Are these our scepters? these our due rewards?
And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards?”
To whom the Father of th’ immortal race,
Smiling with that serene indulgent face,
With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies,
First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies:
“Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire
The fates of thine are fix’d, and stand entire.
Thou shalt behold thy wish’d Lavinian walls;
And, ripe for heav’n, when fate Aeneas calls,
Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me:
No councils have revers’d my firm decree.
And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state,
Know, I have search’d the mystic rolls of Fate:
Thy son (nor is th’ appointed season far)
In Italy shall wage successful war,
Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field,
And sov’reign laws impose, and cities build,
Till, after ev’ry foe subdued, the sun
Thrice thro’ the signs his annual race shall run:
This is his time prefix’d. Ascanius then,
Now call’d Iulus, shall begin his reign.
He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear,
Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer,
And, with hard labor, Alba Longa build.
The throne with his succession shall be fill’d
Three hundred circuits more: then shall be seen
Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen,
Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes,
Shall at a birth two goodly boys disclose.
The royal babes a tawny wolf shall drain:
Then Romulus his grandsire’s throne shall gain,
Of martial tow’rs the founder shall become,
The people Romans call, the city Rome.
To them no bounds of empire I assign,
Nor term of years to their immortal line.
Ev’n haughty Juno, who, with endless broils,
Earth, seas, and heav’n, and Jove