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757 copies of this edition are printed 
 for advance subscribers only 
 
 Copyright, igo4 
 By Nathan Haskell Dole 
 
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INTRODUCTION 
 
 PuBLius Vergilius Maro was a farm- 
 er's son. He was born at Andes, near 
 Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul, in October, 
 70 B. c. His education seems to have 
 been unusually thorough. He studied 
 at Cremona, at Mediolanum (Milan), at 
 Naples, where Parthenius, a native of 
 Bithynia, taught him Greek, and at 
 Rome, where he is believed to have 
 learned the Epicurean philosophy under 
 Syron. His health was feeble, and that 
 may have caused him to return to his 
 father's small estate, where he cultivated 
 the Muses at his leisure. After the 
 battle of Philippi in 42 b. c, he was dis- 
 possessed of his farm, which came into 
 the hands of a veteran named Claudius. 
 Vergil, at the recommendation of Asinius 
 Pollio, applied to Octavianus for its resti- 
 tution. The first eclogue seems to prove 
 that his request was granted. The ten ec- 
 logues, or Bucolics, as they are sometimes 
 i 
 
 Pa 
 
 57 
 
 515097 
 
called, were published when Vergil was 
 thirty-five, and probably were regarded as 
 a tribute to the great Emperor. They are 
 not remarkable for their originality. In- 
 deed, Vergil was more of an imitator 
 than a creator, but he used his Greek 
 models to great advantage, and the polish 
 which he succeeded in communicating 
 to his hexameters was never excelled 
 by any Roman versifier. It is a rather 
 interesting circumstance that he ends 
 the last book of his agricultural poems 
 with a repetition of the first line of 
 the thanksgiving eclogue, thus definitely 
 proving, if other proof were needed, 
 that the Bucolics preceded the Georgics : 
 
 *' Illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alehat 
 Parthenope^ studiis Jlorentem ignobilis oti^ 
 Carmina qui lust pastroum^ audaxque 
 
 iuventOy 
 Tityre^ te patula cecini sub tegmine fagi^ 
 
 The question of selection always 
 arises when one wishes to present a 
 faithful picture of a foreign work. 
 Frederick Harrison says : 
 ii 
 
" The present generation has pro- 
 duced a complete library of versions of 
 the great classics ; chiefly in prose, partly 
 in verse, more faithful, true, and scholarly, 
 than anything ever produced before. It 
 is the photographic age of translation 
 and all that the art of sun-pictures has 
 done for the recording of ancient build- 
 ings, and more than that, the art of 
 literal translation has done for the under- 
 standing of ancient poetry. 
 
 " A complete translation of a great 
 poem is, of course, an impossible thing. 
 The finest translation is at best but a 
 copy of a part ; it gives us more or less 
 crudely some element of the original; 
 the colour, the light and shade, the glow 
 arc not there, lost as completely as they 
 are in a photograph. But in the large pho- 
 tograph — say of the Sistine Madonna — 
 the lines and the composition are there, 
 as no human hand ever drew them. 
 And so in a fine translation the thought 
 survives." 
 
 Other things being equal, a translation 
 which preserves the metre of the origi- 
 nal, as far as possible, will be the most 
 iii 
 
satisfactory. It has been long believed, 
 more from prejudice than from any 
 well-founded reason, that the so-called 
 hexameter is not adapted to the genius 
 of the English language. It is true that 
 in English iambics and anapests are 
 more natural than dactyls and trochees. 
 The articles have a way of demanding 
 recognition, and they must be reckoned 
 with. The whole secret of rhythmic 
 verse, as far as the modern ear is con- 
 cerned, lies in accent. If the frame- 
 syllables are strong and the unaccented 
 syllables require no accentuation to 
 make sense, lines will be smooth and 
 rhythmical. It is wholly a question of 
 music, and being a question of music, 
 there is no earthly reason why the hex- 
 ameter should not be made the richest 
 and most satisfactory vehicle for expres- 
 sion in the English language, as it was in 
 the Greek and Latin. 
 
 Lord Bowen adopted the hexameter for 
 his unfinished version of Vergil, and he 
 thus explained his method and modifi- 
 cation : 
 
 " Hundreds of Vergil's lines are for 
 iv 
 
most of us familiar quotations, which 
 linger in our memory, and round which 
 our literary associations cluster and hang, 
 just as religious feeling clings to well- 
 known texts or passages of Scripture. 
 The charm of such associations cannot 
 be preserved in a translation, unless upon 
 fit occasions a corresponding English line, 
 pointed and complete in itself, can take, 
 however imperfectly, the place of the 
 well-known original. To satisfy this 
 requirement, Vergil ought to be translated 
 more or less lineally^ as well as literally. 
 The heroic metre of Pope or Dryden 
 cannot do this, nor can the ordinary 
 blank verse of ten syllables. The Ver- 
 gilian line is too long to be represented 
 or reproduced in either. A ballad metre 
 for Vergil is, on the other hand, out of 
 the question. 
 
 "English hexameters, meanwhile, — 
 the vehicle of Longfellow's ' Evangeline,' 
 of Clough's ' Bothie,' and, first in metri- 
 cal value of the three, of Kingsley's 
 ' Andromeda,' — have never become pop- 
 ular. The late Lord Derby condemns 
 them as a ' pestilent heresy.' Less impet- 
 
uous critics will probably prefer to abstain 
 from despairing of a metre which has 
 been so little the subject of experiment 
 and labour. 
 
 "With his usual delicate perception, 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold observed, many 
 years ago, that the English hexameter 
 contained in itself resources that might 
 yet be developed fruitfully, and there can 
 be little question but that the genius of 
 Lord Tennyson or of Mr. Swinburne 
 would make of the English hexameter — 
 even in a prolonged poem — more than 
 has as yet been deemed possible. Still, 
 there is one feature in its structure and 
 formation which presents a considerable 
 barrier, — the cadence of the final foot 
 of two syllables, which, whatever its 
 beauties and whatever its advantages in 
 a more melodious language, appears to 
 require (in English use) rhyme to prevent 
 it from becoming tedious, and yet which 
 it would be impossible to treat in rhyme, 
 even if the attempt were not certain to 
 result in a mediaeval jingle. 
 
 " In the present volume an effort has 
 been made to accommodate the genuine 
 vi 
 
hexameter to English purposes by short- 
 ening the final dissyllabic foot into a foot 
 of a single syllable. The pure classical 
 hexameter may be illustrated by a verse 
 which the poet Coleridge has left behind 
 for an English specimen : 
 
 " ' In the hexameter rises the fountain' s sil- 
 very column.^ 
 
 I have discarded the final dissyllable, and 
 put in place of it a single syllable only 
 — a process which would convert the 
 Coleridgian line into the following : 
 
 " In the hexameter rises the fountain^ s sil- 
 very spray. 
 
 The alteration gives us a verse capable, 
 amongst other advantages, of being easily 
 dealt with in rhyme. Although a trans- 
 lation in ryhme involves embarrassing 
 necessities, it cannot be denied that habit 
 has taught an English ear to extract a 
 pleasure from ryhme which is appreciable 
 and valuable. Rhyme adds to our sense 
 of adjustment and of nicety, and awakens 
 vii 
 
in the reader an interest in the fortunes 
 and success of each single line which 
 reacts usefully on the industry and care 
 of the translator. 
 
 " That the metre so produced — 
 though inferior to the classical hexam- 
 eter, and shorn of a syllable which in 
 the original Latin is both an element 
 of beauty and a source of sustained 
 strength — is, nevertheless, a fine one, 
 susceptible of varied treatment, full of 
 flexibility, capable of rising to real 
 grandeur, no failure of mine to manipu- 
 late it will ever make me doubt. In the 
 hands of a great master of versification 
 it would be a powerful instrument. 
 That it preserves the orderly and ma- 
 jestic movement of the Roman hexam- 
 eter it is not possible to claim : nor 
 can the cadence and caesura of the 
 classical model be consistently imitated 
 or observed. 
 
 " Latin is Latin, and not English. 
 Pure hexameters, moreover, as Mr. Cal- 
 verly points out, are beyond the reach of 
 our more rugged language, and the 
 ' quantity * of words cannot by any 
 viii 
 
amount of care be regulated with the 
 same precision in English as in Latin. 
 Two consonants following a single 
 vowel are sufficient in Latin — except 
 in certain specific cases — to make the 
 syllable long. English poetry never has 
 been written — could not, indeed, be 
 written — on so musical a plan. We 
 must take our tongue as it is, and all 
 that can be done in the way of quanti- 
 tative purism is perhaps to attend with 
 fastidious care to the cultivated pronun- 
 ciation of English words, and to observe 
 such differences as a trained sense con- 
 siders of importance. In the end the 
 ear must judge." 
 
 This is not the place for controversy, 
 but it may not be out of place to remark 
 that both in Greek and in Latin — and 
 this is true in a large degree of the lan- 
 guages derived therefrom — the versifi- 
 cation being called quantitative allows 
 an unnatural pronunciation. The beauty 
 of English versification which makes it 
 a thousand times superior to the artificial 
 perfection of the classic verse is that the 
 sense must coincide with the sound. A 
 ix 
 
Frenchman reading French verse and 
 neglecting the scansion makes prose of it, 
 and the metrical reading of Vergil or 
 Homer is nothing but meaningless sing- 
 song. 
 
 Charles Synge Christopher, Baron 
 Bowen, was born at Woolaston, Jan- 
 uary I, 1835. He was the oldest son 
 of the Rev. Christopher Bowen, a mem- 
 ber of a County Mayo family. His 
 mother was daughter of Captain Sir 
 Richard Steele. He was educated prin- 
 cipally at Rugby, where he was a leader 
 both in athletics and in scholarship. 
 Both in cricket and in football he had no 
 equal. He was a remarkable jumper, 
 often leaping over a cow as it stood. 
 He carried off nearly all prizes, winning 
 one scholarship after another. He was 
 made D. C. L. in 1883, and two years 
 later Balliol College appointed him vis- 
 itor — the highest honour in its gift. For 
 several years he contributed regularly to 
 the Saturday Review^ but differences 
 arose between him and the editor, and 
 he declined to accept a similar position 
 on a rival journal. In 1861 he was 
 X 
 
called to the bar and almost immediately 
 secured a lucrative practice. In 1865 
 his health failed, and during the rest of 
 his life was always precarious. In 1879 
 he was appointed as judge on the Queen's 
 Bench. In 1888 was promoted to be 
 judge of the Court of Appeal, and was 
 knighted. In 1893 ^^^ made Lord of 
 Appeal and granted a life peerage. He 
 did not live long to enjoy the honours 
 that were heaped upon him. His health 
 entirely failed, and he died April 10, 1894. 
 He was regarded as remarkable for his 
 subtlety and rapidity of perception, for 
 his extraordinary power of refined dis- 
 tinctions, for his elegant precision of 
 language, for his wit and charm of con- 
 versation. He was the author of many 
 oft-quoted sayings. In 1868 he pub- 
 lished a plan for submitting to a court of 
 arbitration all the differences that were 
 likely to arise between the United States 
 and England concerning the War of the 
 Rebellion. His translation of a part of 
 Vergil was published in 1887. ^^ 
 promised to complete it, but the promise 
 was never fulfilled. N. h. d. 
 
 xi 
 
ECLOGUE I. 
 
 TITYRUS 
 
 TITYRUS. MELIBOSUS 
 Melihoeus 
 
 Thou, my Tityrus, under a beech-tree's 
 
 broadening shade 
 Tunest a slender reed to a song of the 
 
 wild wood glade — 
 We from our own dear land and her 
 
 cornfields sweet must away, 
 5 
 
Flying from home. In the shadow re- 
 clined thou passest the day, 
 
 Teaching the forest echoes the fair 
 Amaryllis to praise. 
 
 Tityrus 
 
 Ah ! to a god, Meliboeus, we owe these 
 
 halcyon days ! 
 In these eyes he will ever be God; on 
 
 his altar divine 
 Often a tender lamb shall bleed from a 
 
 sheep-cot of mine ; 
 *T is of his grace my cattle are roaming 
 
 yonder the plains, 
 I on a reed of the meadow may pipe my 
 
 favourite strains. 
 
 Melibceus 
 
 Envy I bear thee none, though I marvel 
 
 much ; for unrest 
 Reaches as far as the meadows around 
 
 us. Feebly at best 
 These she-goats I am driving, and lead 
 
 one laggard behind. 
 Here in the thick-grown hazels she 
 
 dropped — last hope of a flock — 
 6 
 
Two young kidlings lately, alas, on the 
 
 scaur of the rock ! 
 This was the sorrow that often, had I 
 
 been wiser inclined. 
 Oaks by the lightning rent, I remember, 
 
 warned me to mind. 
 Oft from the holm-oak's hole on the left 
 
 did a raven portend. 
 Yet, my Tityrus, tell us the god thou 
 
 callest a friend. 
 
 Tityrus 
 
 Rome, as the people name her, I fancied, 
 
 fool that I am. 
 Like this town, Meliboeus, of ours — 
 
 where many a lamb 
 Goes from our shepherd folds new 
 
 weaned. So used I to note 
 Puppies resembled the hound, and the 
 
 kids their mother the goat. 
 So was I alway wonted to measure the 
 
 great by the small. 
 Yonder imperial city her crest uplifts 
 
 above all. 
 As among wayside saplings the giant 
 
 cypresses show. 
 7 
 
Melthceus 
 
 What was the mighty occasion that 
 Romeward called thee to go ? 
 
 Tttyrus 
 
 Freedom, late as it was, looked down 
 
 where slothful I lay, 
 When from the scissors I found my 
 
 beard fall whiter away. 
 Late as it was looked down, and arrived, 
 
 as the years rolled on. 
 When Amaryllis ruled me, and fair 
 
 Galatea was gone. 
 Since, I confess, so long as I loved Gal- 
 atea the fair, 
 Hope I had little of freedom — of thrift 
 
 had never a care. 
 Many a victim went from my herd to 
 
 the temple floor. 
 Many a rich milk cheese to a thankless 
 
 city I bore. 
 Homeward ever I came with a purse 
 
 unfilled as before. 
 
 8 
 
Melibaeus 
 
 Often I asked me the reason of sad 
 
 Amaryllis's prayers, 
 Wondered for whom she had left in her 
 
 pear-tree hanging the pears : 
 Tityrus hence had departed — and, Tit- 
 
 yrus, even the pines 
 Wanted thee home, and the fountains 
 
 and these thy veriest vines. 
 
 Tityrus 
 
 Had I a choice ? There only can slaves 
 
 be released from the chain. 
 Nowhere else to the presence of gods so 
 
 gracious attain. 
 Here I beheld, Meliboeus, the youthful 
 
 hero for whom 
 Twice six days our altars with annual 
 
 offerings fume. 
 Here from his lips first fell the reply : 
 
 " My children, in peace 
 Feed as of old your cattle, and rear your 
 
 bulls to increase." 
 
Melibceus 
 
 Blest old man ! Thy fields will be left 
 
 thee then, and indeed 
 Ample enough to content thee, although 
 
 bare stone overlie 
 Every pasture strewn with the mud and 
 
 the marshland reed. 
 No unaccustomed grasses will poison the 
 
 ewes as they breed, 
 Never contagion spread from the flock 
 
 that is browsing nigh. 
 Here, by the well-known streams, 
 
 and the hallowed springs, it shall 
 
 still 
 Thine be to drink cool draughts of re- 
 freshing shade to thy fill ; 
 Here, as aforetime ever, the hedge on 
 
 the boundary line. 
 Feeding Hyblaean bees upon willow blos- 
 soms of thine. 
 Oft shall woo thee to sleep with its 
 
 gentle whisper, and long 
 Under his upland rock shall the dresser 
 
 carol his song. 
 Nor shall the hoarse wood-pigeons the 
 
 while, thy pets, nor the dove 
 lO 
 
Cease from a plaintive cooing in high 
 elm branches above. 
 
 Tityrus 
 
 Yea, and the light-limbed stags shall be 
 sooner fed upon air, 
 
 Sooner the sea on its beaches the fish 
 leave stranded and bare, 
 
 Outcasts each upon alien shores, by the 
 Araris stream 
 
 Parthian dwell, on the Tigris the Ger- 
 man water his team. 
 
 Ere from remembrance of ours his be- 
 nignant look is effaced. 
 
 Meliboeus 
 
 Wanderers we ! some fated to see 
 parched Africa's waste, 
 
 Scythia's wilds, and the Cretan Oaxes in 
 torrents whirled ; 
 
 Some, far Britain's people, remote from 
 the habited world. 
 
 Ah ! shall I ever again, as the years roll 
 onward, behold 
 
 Home's dear fields, this cot with its turf- 
 thatched roof as of old ? 
 II 
 
See what is left of my kingdom — a few 
 
 poor oats in the grain ? 
 Over the sods I have turned shall a law- 
 less soldiery reign, 
 Barbarous legions reap ? Is it hither 
 
 that long Discord 
 Leads our land ! Have we sown these 
 
 fields for an alien horde ! 
 Go, Melibceus, engraft thy pears, thy 
 
 vineyard array ; 
 Hence, my goats — poor flock that was 
 
 once so happy — away ! 
 Never again, in the hollow of some green 
 
 cavern at rest, 
 Shall I behold ye, clinging to yon clifPs 
 
 briary breast ; 
 Songs no more shall I sing ye ; with me 
 
 no more shall ye rove. 
 Browsing the cytisus blossoms, and bitter 
 
 willows ye love. 
 
 Tityrus 
 
 Yet thou mightest at least for the night 
 
 in my cottage rest. 
 Couched upon branches green. We 
 
 have apples ripe of the best, 
 12 
 
Chestnuts mealy, and plentiful cheese 
 from the new milk pressed. 
 
 See in the distance already the roof 
 stacks smoke to the sky, 
 
 Lengthening shadows fall from the 
 mountain ranges on high. 
 
 13 
 
ECLOGUE II. 
 CORYDON 
 
 CoRYDON, humble shepherd, the lovely 
 Alexis adored j 
 
 Could not look to be honoured of one 
 so dear to his lord ; 
 
 Still to the beeches thick, and the tree- 
 tops heavy with shade. 
 
 Daily he came, and alone to the moun- 
 tain and listening glade 
 
 Poured in a fruitless longing the simple 
 songs he had made : 
 14 
 
Cruel Alexis ! are all of my songs 
 
 passed heedlessly by ? 
 Wilt thou never have pity, but drive thy 
 
 lover to die ? 
 Even the cattle now of the shade and 
 
 the cool are in quest ; 
 Emerald lizards hide in the thornwood 
 
 thicket at rest. 
 Thestylis now for the reapers, who flag 
 
 in the furious sun, 
 Bruises the thyme and the garlic, her 
 
 fragrant grasses, in one. 
 Only the husky cicalas and I, still track- 
 ing thy feet, 
 Waken the vineyard echoes from sleep, 
 
 in the noonday heat. 
 Better to suffer, methinks, Amaryllis in 
 
 angriest air. 
 Better her humours proud to endure, or 
 
 Menalcas to bear. 
 Dark though he be of complexion, and 
 
 thou all snowily fair ! 
 Trust not, beautiful one, fair cheeks too 
 
 blindly, for — mark ! 
 White hedge flowers we abandon, to 
 
 gather the hyacinth dark. 
 
 15 
 
Thou dost scorn me, Alexis, nor carest 
 
 about me to know, 
 How I am wealthy in sheep, and in milk 
 
 that is white as the snow; 
 Ewe-lambs mine by the thousand the 
 
 mountains of Sicily roam ; 
 Neither in summer nor winter does new 
 
 milk fail me at home. 
 Ditties I sing, that he sang when he 
 
 folded nightly his sheep, 
 Dirce*s great Amphion, on Aracynth's 
 
 Actian steep. 
 Nor am I all ill-shaped : I beheld me of 
 
 late in the sea 
 When wind-lulled its waters were laid, 
 
 and if only there be 
 Truth in the mirror, and thou our judge, 
 
 no Daphnis I fear. 
 Would that it pleased thee in these poor 
 
 haunts and in lowliness here 
 Under my cottage roof to abide, now 
 
 hunting the deer. 
 Driving now with a mallow of green 
 
 our kids to the lea ! 
 Thou shalt rival at song great Pan, in 
 
 the forest with me. 
 
 i6 
 
Pan was the first musician with wax 
 
 who taught us to bind 
 Reed upon reed ; great Pan to the flock 
 
 and the shepherd is kind. 
 Nor if the reeds have wounded thy lip, 
 
 stay thou to repine ; 
 What did Amyntas pay, to possess these 
 
 secrets of mine ? 
 
 I have a pipe that of old Damoetas gave 
 
 me, a prize 
 Fashioned of hemlock stalks ; they are 
 
 seven, of varying size. 
 Dying he said : " It is thine, since thou 
 
 to thy master art next." 
 So Damoetas spake; and the foolish 
 
 Amyntas was vexed. 
 Two young roes of the mountain besides 
 
 — I found them remote 
 
 Hid in a perilous glen, with white still 
 
 dappled their coat ; 
 Twice each day each feeds from a ewe 
 
 — I have kept them for thee ; 
 Long has Thestylis asked to possess 
 
 them, and hers shall they be. 
 Since thou thinkest but little of all gifts 
 offered by me. 
 
 17 
 
Beautiful one, come hither ! For thee, 
 
 look, nymphs of the glade 
 Bring full baskets of lilies ; and one fair 
 
 Naiad has made, — 
 Gathering violets pale, and the poppies 
 
 tall, by the way, — 
 Posies of scented anethus in flower, and 
 
 daffodils gay ; 
 Then with casia twining the grasses 
 
 sweet of the dells. 
 Brightens with marigold yellow the bend- 
 ing hyacinth bells. 
 Quinces myself will bring with a down 
 
 of delicate white. 
 Chestnuts in which my love Amaryllis 
 
 used to delight ; 
 Waxen plums shall be honoured — the 
 
 fruit thou lovest — as well. 
 Ye too, bays, will 1 pluck, and the 
 
 myrtles near ye that dwell 
 Planted together, for sweetly beside each 
 
 other ye smell. 
 
 Corydon, thou art poor ! and to gifts in- 
 different he ! 
 
 Still were lolla the winner, in gifts if 
 challenged of thee. 
 i8 
 
Misery ! what am I after ! As lost in 
 
 sorrow I sing, 
 Winds break loose on my flowers, and 
 
 the wild boar into the spring ! 
 Why dost foolishly fly me ? The gods 
 
 too dwelt in the glade 
 Once, with the Trojan Paris. Let Pal- 
 las, cities that made. 
 Live herself in her cities. Be ours in 
 
 the woods to delight ! 
 Lioness chases the wolf, wolf follows 
 
 the goat in her flight ; 
 Frolicking she-goat roves to the cytisus 
 
 flower to be fed ; 
 Corydon follows Alexis ; so each by his 
 
 liking is led. 
 Homeward, behold, inverted the share 
 
 comes drawn by the steer ; 
 Double the lengthening shadows become, 
 
 for sunset is near ; 
 Love still burns in my bosom ; can love 
 
 know measure or rest ? 
 Corydon, ah ! what madness thy simple 
 
 soul has possessed ! 
 Half unpruned thy vine ! On an elm 
 
 too leafy it lies ; 
 
 19 
 
Better finish betimes, for the use of the 
 hour as it flies, 
 
 One of thy baskets of reeds and of lis- 
 som withies entwined ; 
 
 If one lover be cruel, another is easy to 
 find. 
 
 20 
 
ECLOGUE III. 
 PALiEMON 
 
 MENALCAS. DAMCETAS. PAL^MON 
 Menalcas 
 
 Whose is the flock, Damoetas? Are 
 yon Meliboeus's sheep ? 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Nay, they are Agon's, and ^gon en- 
 trusts them now to my keep. 
 
 21 r 
 
Menalcas 
 
 Poor things, ever unlucky ! The master 
 
 of flock and of herd 
 Courting Neaera, and trembling for fear 
 
 my love be preferred. 
 Twice each hour this stranger, he hires, 
 
 comes milking the dams ; 
 Strength is drained from the mothers, 
 
 and milk withdrawn from the lambs. 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Ere thou slanderest others, bethink thee 
 
 longer. We know 
 All that the peeping eyes of the he-goats 
 
 witnessed, and, though 
 Lightly the gay nymphs laughed, what 
 
 chapel ye chose for the scene. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 *T was, I suppose, when they saw me 
 through Micon's vineries go 
 
 Hacking with knife of a villain his vine 
 shoots tender and green. 
 
 22 
 
Damoetas 
 
 Yea, or at those old beeches the day 
 
 thou brakest in twain 
 Daphnis's bow and his arrows, Menal- 
 
 cas peevish and vain ! 
 When to the boy thou sawest them 
 
 given, thy spirit repined ; — 
 Thou hadst died if a mischief thou hadst 
 
 not done to mankind ! 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 What will the master do if the knaves 
 these villanies dare ! 
 
 Did I not see thee, caitiff, in ambush 
 laid, with a snare 
 
 Angling for Damon's goat, and his wolf- 
 hound baying with might ? 
 
 And, when I shouted, "Whither away 
 yon fellow ? A care, 
 
 Tityrus, have to thy flock," to the reeds 
 thou stolest from sight. 
 
 23 
 
Damcstas 
 
 Vanquished fairly in song, was he not 
 
 yon goat to resign, 
 Won by my flute's sweet singing ? The 
 
 goat, I can tell thee, was mine ; 
 Thus much Damon allowed, but his 
 
 debt was unable to meet. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Thou match Damon in singing ? And 
 
 hast thou ever a flute 
 Jointed with wax? Was it not, poor 
 
 dunce, thy sorry pursuit 
 Wretched ditties to murder on grating 
 
 straws through the street? 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Shall we essay what in music between 
 
 us each can achieve 
 Singing in turn ? This heifer I lay thee 
 
 lest thou decline — 
 Twice each day she is milked; though 
 
 still at her udders we leave 
 24 
 
Two young calves : what stake for the 
 coming battle is thine f 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Nothing from yonder flock can I venture 
 
 safely to find : 
 I have a father at home and a stepdame 
 
 harshly inclined — 
 Twice in the day both reckon the sheep, 
 
 one ever doth see 
 Counted the kids. What is grander, as 
 
 thou thyself wilt agree, 
 Since upon folly thy spirit is bent, two 
 
 cups I will stake, 
 Beechen, embossed all round — the in- 
 spired Alcimedon's make. 
 Wrought thereon by the skill of the 
 
 graver, a flexible vine 
 Droops o'er clusters of berry from ivies 
 
 pale that entwine : 
 Figures twain in the midst : one Conon, 
 
 and, — how was he hight ? — 
 He, who has mapped out heaven to 
 
 inform earth's nations aright. 
 Which be the seasons for reapers and 
 
 those who stoop at the plough. 
 25 
 
No lip ever has touched them : I keep 
 them hoarded till now. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Two fair cups of the same Alcimedon's 
 making are mine ; 
 
 Round their handles he wrought an acan- 
 thus lissom to twine : 
 
 Orpheus placed in the midst, and the 
 woods that dance as he plays. 
 
 No lip ever has touched them — I keep 
 them hoarded, — as thine. 
 
 Seen by the side of the heifer thy cups 
 are nothing to praise. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Nay ! Thou shalt not escape me — 
 whatever thou wilt, I concede — 
 
 Choose but a Judge ! And Palaemon, 
 who passes yonder, at need. 
 
 So henceforth will I cure thee of chal- 
 lenging others to sing. 
 
 26 
 
Damcetas 
 
 Start ! an a song thou knowest — I shall 
 not keep thee, I fear 
 
 No man's voice. But, Palaemon, a sin- 
 gle word in thine ear : 
 
 Grave the affair, to its solving a wise 
 intelligence bring. 
 
 Palcemon 
 
 Sing then, since upon softest grass we 
 are seated, the three ; 
 
 Now each meadow is teeming, in leaf- 
 birth every tree, ' 
 
 Now all forests are green, now fairest 
 in beauty the year. 
 
 Thine to begin, Damoetas ; Menalcas 
 second shall be. 
 
 Ring the alternate changes ; a change to 
 the Muses is dear. 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Muses ! from Jove the beginning ; the 
 
 worlds are full of his power. 
 
 27 
 
He makes earth to be fruitful ; he hears 
 my songs with delight. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Dear am I also to Phcebus's heart ; his 
 
 favourites flower 
 Aye in my garden — the bay and the 
 
 hyacinth scented and bright. 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Apple in hand, Galatea, she pelts me, 
 
 frolicsome fair, 
 Flies to the willows, and wishes, before 
 
 she is hid, to be seen. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Ah ! my darling Amyntas, before I call 
 
 him, is there — 
 More of a friend with my puppies than 
 
 Delia even has been. 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Gifts I have found for my beauty — 
 
 myself I marked from below 
 
 28 
 
Where wood-pigeons have built in the 
 tallest trees of the glen. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Ten gold apples I sent my love from a 
 
 vv^ilding I know ; 
 All I was able — to-morrow will send 
 
 him as many again. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Oh, for the times Galatea has met me — 
 
 the things she confessed ! 
 Waft to the ears of the gods some part, 
 
 thou listening wind ! 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Ah ! what boots it, Amyntas, that I thy 
 
 heart have possessed. 
 If, when the boar thou art hunting, the 
 
 nets my lot be to mind ? 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Send me thy Phyllis, lollaj to-day my 
 birthday is kept: 
 29 
 
Come thyself when a heifer I slay for 
 the harvest in grain. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Phyllis I love before all. When I left 
 
 her, lolla, she wept. 
 " Beautiful boy, farewell ! " she repeated 
 
 again and again. 
 
 Damaetas 
 
 Wolves are a grief to the flock ; to the 
 ripened harvest the showers ; 
 
 Winds to the trees ; my grief, Amaryllis 
 in anger to see. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Sweet is the dew to the seed; to the 
 weaned kid arbutus flowers \ 
 
 Willows to ewes that are yeaning ; but 
 only Amyntas to me. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Pollio loves my verse, though of rustic 
 measure. A calf, 
 30 
 
Muses, fatten in honour of one who 
 reads and approves. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 PoUio makes sweet songs of his own. 
 
 In a poet's behalf 
 Fatten a bull, now butting, and spurning 
 
 the sand with his hooves. 
 
 Damoetas 
 
 Pollio! may thy lovers a bright world 
 
 visit with thee 
 Flowing with honey, the bramble for 
 
 them bear spice of the nard. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Who hates Bavius not, let him lover of 
 
 Maevius be ; 
 Plough with a team of foxes, and milk 
 
 he-goats for reward. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Boys, who are gathering flowers and the 
 berries that grow on the ground, 
 31 
 
Run, for a cold snake lurks in the grasses 
 yonder unseen ! 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Go no further, my sheep : unsafe yon 
 
 bank will be found. 
 Look at the ram still drying his dripping 
 
 fleece on the green. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Tityrus, drive from the river the she- 
 goats seeking to eat. 
 
 When it is time, myself I will wash 
 them clean in the spring. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Fold, my children, the ewes; for the 
 milk once touched by the heat. 
 
 As but of late, our fingers in vain to the 
 udders will cling. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Lean my bull, though he feeds on the 
 richest tares that are grown ! 
 32 
 
One and the same love wasting the 
 flock and the master as well. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Mine no love can account for ; the skin 
 scarce cleaves to the bone. 
 
 Evil eye that I know not has cast on 
 the lambkins a spell. 
 
 Damcetas 
 
 Tell me in what far land — and for ever 
 
 be Oracle mine — 
 Three ell-lengths of the sky are alone 
 
 left open to see. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Tell me in what far region the names 
 
 of kings are a sign 
 Writ on the wild flower's petals — and 
 
 thine my Phyllis shall be. 
 
 Palamon 
 
 Mine no voice that can settle debate so 
 mighty. The twain 
 33 
 
Equally merit the heifer and each fond 
 lover who still 
 
 Trusts love's sweetness, or finds by ex- 
 perience bitter its pain. 
 
 Close, my children, the sluices; the 
 meadows have drunk their fill. 
 
 34 
 
ECLOGUE IV. 
 POLLIO 
 
 Muses of Sicily's fountain, a grander 
 
 song let us sing. 
 Pleasure to some nor vines nor the 
 
 humble tamarisks bring. 
 Worthy a Consul's ear be the woods 
 
 whose praises we ring ! 
 Come is the last of the Ages, in song 
 
 Cumaean foretold. 
 
 35 
 
Now is the world's grand cycle begun 
 
 once more from of old. 
 Justice the Virgin comes, and the Saturn 
 
 kingdom again ; 
 Now from the skies is descending a new 
 
 generation of men. 
 Thou to the boy in his birth, — upon 
 
 whose first opening eyes 
 The iron age shall close, and a race that 
 
 is golden arise, — 
 Chaste Lucina, be kindly ! He reigns — 
 
 thy PhcEbus — to-day ! 
 Thine to be Consul, thine, at a bright 
 
 world's ushering in, 
 Pollio, when the procession of nobler 
 
 months shall begin j 
 Under thy rule all lingering traces of 
 
 Italy's sin, 
 Fading to nought, shall free us from 
 
 fear's perpetual sway. 
 
 Life of the gods shall be his, to behold 
 with gods in their might 
 
 Heroes immortal mingled, appear him- 
 self in their sight. 
 
 Rule with his Father's virtues a world at 
 peace from the sword. 
 
 36 
 
Boy, for thine infant presents the caith 
 
 unlaboured shall bring 
 Ivies wild with foxglove around thee 
 
 wreathing, and fling 
 Mixed with the laughing acanthus the 
 
 lotus leaf on the sward ; 
 Homeward at eve untended the goat 
 
 shall come from the mead 
 Swelling with milk; flocks fearless of 
 
 monster lions shall feed ; 
 Even thy cradle blossom with tender 
 
 flowers, and be gay. 
 Every snake shall perish ; the treacher- 
 ous poison weed 
 Die, and Assyrian spices arise unsown 
 
 by the way. 
 
 When thou art able to read of the heroes' 
 glories, the bright 
 
 Deeds of thy sire, and to know what is 
 manhood's valour and might, 
 
 Plains will be turning golden, and wave 
 with ripening corn ; 
 
 Purple grapes shall blush on the tangled 
 wilderness thorn ; 
 
 Honey from hard-grained oaks be dis- 
 tilling pure as the dew ; 
 37 
 
Though of our ancient folly as yet shall 
 
 linger a few 
 Traces, to bid us venture the deep, with 
 
 walls to surround 
 Cities, and, restless ever, to cleave with 
 
 furrows the ground. 
 Then shall another Tiphys, a later Argo 
 
 to sea 
 Sail, with her heroes chosen ; again great 
 
 battles shall be ; 
 Once more mighty Achilles be sent to a 
 
 second Troy. 
 
 Soon when strengthening years shall have 
 
 made thee man from a boy. 
 Trader himself shall abandon the deep ; 
 
 no trafficking hull 
 Barter her wares; all regions of all 
 
 things fair shall be full. 
 Glebe shall be free from the harrow, the 
 
 vine no pruner fear ; 
 Soon will the stalwart ploughman release 
 
 unneeded the steer. 
 Varied hues no longer the wool shall 
 
 falsely assume. 
 Now to a blushing purple and now to 
 
 the saffron's bloom, 
 
 38 
 
Cropping the meadow, the ram shall 
 change his fleece at his need ; 
 
 Crimsoning grasses colour the lambs 
 themselves as they feed. 
 
 " Ages blest, roll onward ! " the Sisters 
 
 of Destiny cried 
 Each to her spindle, agreeing by Fate's 
 
 firm will to abide. 
 Come to thy godlike honours ; the time 
 
 wellnigh is begun; 
 Offspring loved of immortals, of Jove 
 
 great scion and son ! 
 Lo, how the universe totters beneath 
 
 heaven's dome and its weight. 
 Land and the wide waste waters, the 
 
 depths of the firmament great ! 
 Lo, all nature rejoices to see this glorious 
 
 day ! 
 
 Ah, may the closing years of my life en- 
 during be found, — 
 
 Breath sufficient be mine thy deeds of 
 valour to sound, — 
 
 Orpheus neither nor Linus shall ever 
 surpass my lay ; 
 
 39 
 
One with mother immortal, and one 
 
 with sire, at his side. 
 To Orpheus Calliopeia, to Linus Apollo 
 
 allied. 
 Pan, were he here competing, did all 
 
 Arcadia see. 
 Pan, by Arcadia's voice, should allow 
 
 him vanquished of me ! 
 Baby, begin thy mother to know, and to 
 
 meet with a smile ; 
 Ten long moons she has waited, and 
 
 borne her burthen the while. 
 Smile, my babe ; to his feast no god has 
 
 admitted the child. 
 Goddess none to her kisses, on whom no 
 
 parent has smiled. 
 
 40 
 
ECLOGUE V. 
 DAPHNIS 
 
 MENALCAS. MOPSUS 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Mopsus, since we are met peradventure, 
 
 both of us strong, 
 Thou in the light reed's music, and I in 
 
 music of song. 
 Were it not well where the hazels with 
 
 elm-trees mingle to rest ? 
 41 
 
Mopsus 
 
 Thou art the elder, Menalcas, and I 
 
 would do thy behest, 
 Whether we make for the shadows that 
 
 flicker in winds of the west. 
 Or to the cave for a choice; and the 
 
 cave how chequered with shade. 
 See, from the straggling clusters of wild 
 
 vine over it laid. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Only Amyntas on these our mountains 
 is rival of thine. 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 What, an he claim to be equal in verse 
 to Apollo divine ? 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Mopsus, begin I some song of thy 
 
 making, full of the flame 
 Phyllis inspires, or in Alcon's praise, or 
 
 in Codrus's blame. 
 42 
 
Tityrus, yonder, will follow behind our 
 kids as they eat. 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 Words that I carved but lately on bark 
 
 still green of a beech. 
 Fluting, and pausing in turn to engrave 
 
 its note upon each, 
 I will essay. Then bid thy Amyntas 
 
 seek to compete ! 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 As to the pale green olive the flexible 
 
 willow yields. 
 As to the blushing rose is the Celtic reed 
 
 of the fields, 
 So doth Amyntas beside thee in my poor 
 
 judgment appear. 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 Prithee, Menalcas, peace ! for the cave 
 already is here. 
 43 
 
{Sings) 
 
 All of the nymphs went weeping for 
 Daphnis cruelly slain : 
 
 Ye were witnesses, hazels and river 
 waves, of the pain 
 
 When to her son's sad body the mother 
 clave with a cry, 
 
 Calling the great gods cruel, and cruel 
 the stars of the sky. 
 
 None upon those dark days their pastured 
 oxen did lead, 
 
 Daphnis, to drink of the cold clear rivu- 
 let ; never a steed 
 
 Tasted the flowing waters, or cropped 
 one blade in the mead. 
 
 Over thy grave how the lions of Car- 
 thage groaned in despair, 
 
 Daphnis, the echoes of mountain wild 
 and of forest declare. 
 
 Daphnis was first who taught us to guide, 
 with a chariot rein. 
 
 Far Armenia's tigers, the choirs of 
 lacchus to train. 
 
 Led us with foliage waving the pliant 
 spear to entwine. 
 
 44 
 
As to the tree her vine is a glory, her 
 
 grapes to the vine, 
 Bull to the horned herd, and the corn to 
 
 a fruitful plain. 
 Thou to thine own wert beauty ; and 
 
 since fate robbed us of thee, 
 Pales herself, and Apollo are gone from 
 
 meadow and lea. 
 Where in the furrow we sowed great 
 
 pearls of glistening grain, 
 Lo ! the unfruitful darnel, the oatstalks 
 
 barren appear. 
 Tender violets once, and the bright nar- 
 cissus were here ; 
 Thistles now, and the spikes of the 
 
 Christ thorn, sharp as a spear. 
 Scatter the turf with leaves, and the 
 
 fountains border with shade. 
 Shepherds, for Daphnis wills to his ghost 
 
 these offerings made ; 
 Build him a tomb, and upon it be this 
 
 the memorial laid : 
 Daphnis was I, of the forest, renowned 
 
 from the earth to the sky ; 
 Fair was the flock I tended, but, ah ! 
 
 still fairer was I. 
 
 45 
 
Menalcas 
 
 Heaven's own poet, to me thy voice and 
 
 its music are sweet 
 As soft sleep on the grass to the tired, 
 
 as in noonday heat 
 Quenching of thirst at a fountain from 
 
 whence comes leaping the wave ; 
 Brave on the flute, as thy master, in song 
 
 thou also as brave. 
 Shepherd blest ! thy glory shall after thy 
 
 master's shine. 
 This my verse in repayment, although 
 
 poor measure for thine, 
 Lo ! I will give thee, and lift to the stars 
 
 thy Daphnis anew, 
 Yea to the stars raise Daphnis — he 
 
 loved me tenderly too. 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 Can I be given a reward more noble than 
 
 music from thee ? 
 Worthy in song our Daphnis himself to 
 
 be honoured, and we 
 
 46 
 
Know from Stimichon's praises hov/ 
 sweet thy melodies be ! 
 
 Menalcas {sings) 
 
 Clad in his shining raiment, the threshold 
 
 strange of the sky 
 Daphnis admires, and the stars and the 
 
 clouds far under him lie. 
 Pleasure blithe in the glade and the 
 
 realms of the greenwood now 
 Reigns, over Pan and the shepherds and 
 
 maiden nymphs of the bough. 
 Wolves no more now menace the sheep 
 
 — no meshes intend 
 Harm to the doe, since Daphnis to gentle 
 
 Peace is a friend. 
 Lo ! with joy to the heavens they lift 
 
 their glorious voice. 
 All the untonsured mountains ! The 
 
 rocks break forth and rejoice ! 
 Vineyards echo : " A god, O Menalcas, 
 
 lo ! he is made ! " 
 Be to thy people gracious and kind. 
 
 Four altars are laid 
 Here : twain, Daphnis, for thee ; twain, 
 
 grander, Apollo, are thine ! 
 47 
 
Two cups yearly with new milk foam- 
 ing, in honour displayed, 
 
 Here will I set : two flagons with oil of 
 the olive that shine, 
 
 And, above all things, gladdening the 
 feast with gifts of the vine, 
 
 Over the fire in the winter, at harvest- 
 time in the shade. 
 
 Pour thee — for newest nectar — in 
 bowls Ariusia's wine. 
 
 Songs Damoetas and Mgon^ the Lyctian 
 singer, shall sing, 
 
 Alphesibceus mimic the Satyr dance in 
 the ring. 
 
 Honours such shall attend thee, when 
 annual vows we address 
 
 Unto the Nymphs, or the harvest with 
 lustral offerings bless. 
 
 Long as the boar to the mountain, the 
 fish to the river is true. 
 
 While bee sucks from the thyme, and 
 cicalas drink of the dew. 
 
 Ever shall last thy name, thy praise, thy 
 glory, and now, 
 
 As to lacchus and Ceres, to thee each 
 son of the plough 
 
 48 
 
Carry his prayer each year, and acknowl- 
 edge duly his vow. 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 Ah ! what boon can I give thee a song 
 so sweet to repay ? 
 
 Neither the whispering breath of the 
 south wind now on its way 
 
 Brings me a joy thus deep, nor the thun- 
 der of surf on the shore — 
 
 Nor when the rock-strewn valley re- 
 sounds to the torrent's roar. 
 
 Menalcas 
 
 Take thou first in requital a frail reed. 
 
 From it I learned : 
 " How for the lovely Alexis the shepherd 
 
 Corydon yearned " — 
 Learned, as I blew it, the measure, " Are 
 
 yon MelibcEus's sheep ? " 
 
 Mopsus 
 
 Take in return this crook, that Antigc- 
 nes, oft as he sued, 
 49 
 
Never obtained : though worthy in those 
 
 old days to be wooed — 
 Knotted with brass all round it, a 
 
 beauty to have and to keep. 
 
 50 
 
ECLOGUE VI. 
 
 VARUS 
 
 While she was young, my Muse in 
 
 Sicilian measure was well 
 Pleased to disport her, nor blushed in the 
 
 greenwood cover to dwell. 
 When I was fain to be telling of kings 
 
 and battles, mine ear 
 Phoebus plucked with a warning : — 
 " The shepherd's duty is clear, 
 
 51 
 
Tityrus — ever to fatten his sheep, keep 
 
 slender his song." 
 So — since poets enough and to spare 
 
 hereafter will long, 
 Varus, to sing thy praises, and war's sad 
 
 glories to chant — 
 I with a meadow reed upon sylvan themes 
 
 will descant. 
 Songs unbidden I sing not. If any who 
 
 love me there be 
 This poor verse to peruse, each tam- 
 arisk. Varus, of thee. 
 Every forest of thee will re-echo, and 
 
 Phoebus has none 
 Dearer at heart than a page with the 
 
 name of Varus begun. 
 
 Muses, proceed ! Young Chromis and 
 young Mnasyllus had found. 
 
 Laid at his length in a cavern, Silenus 
 slumbering sound ; 
 
 Blown his veins with yesterday's wine, 
 as is ever his way. 
 
 Garlands tumbled of late from his fore- 
 head near to him lay. 
 
 And by its battered handle a pitcher pon- 
 derous hung. 
 
 52 
 
On him they fall (for the old man often 
 
 with hope of a song 
 Both had deluded) and bind him in 
 
 chains from his garlands made. 
 As they are standing frightened, arrives 
 
 ere long to their aid 
 ^gle, fairest of Naiads, and, while he is 
 
 opening his eyes. 
 Forehead and brow with the juice of a 
 
 blood-red mulberry dyes. 
 He at the pastime laughing : — ''In 
 
 chains why fetter me so ? 
 Boys, unbind me ; enough your power 
 
 to be able to show. 
 Take this song ye are seeking ; for you 
 
 this song ; for the maid 
 Payment in other fashion.'* And so he 
 
 began as they prayed. 
 Then did ye see to the measure the 
 
 Fauns and the beasts of the glen 
 Tripping in time, their foreheads the stiff 
 
 oaks tossing again. 
 Not so charmed Parnassus when Phoebus 
 
 sings, nor rejoiced 
 Rhodope*s mountain ranges at Orpheus, 
 
 beautiful-voiced. 
 
 53 
 
For in his song he related how through 
 
 void ether were driven 
 Seeds primaeval of earth and of sea and 
 
 the airs of the heaven, 
 Eke of the fire elemental; from these 
 
 first principles came 
 Every beginning — the thin round crust 
 
 of the firmament frame : — 
 Harder and harder the dry land grew, 
 
 and apart in the seas 
 Prisoned the spirit of Ocean — assumed 
 
 life's shapes by degrees. 
 Soon Earth saw with wonder a young 
 
 sun shine in the sky, 
 Farther the rain came falling, as clouds 
 
 were lifted on high. 
 Then was the time when the first woods 
 
 rose, and the animals few 
 Wandered over the hills that as yet no 
 
 creature knew. 
 
 Next of the stones of Pyrrha, of Saturn's 
 
 kingdom he told. 
 Eagles of Caucasus hoar, and the theft 
 
 of Prometheus bold : 
 Sang of the spring where Hylas was lost, 
 
 how the mariner men 
 54 
 
Shouted for Hylas, and every shore rang 
 
 Hylas again ; 
 Then of the snow-white bull, and the 
 
 sad Pasiphae's teen, 
 Happy in this sad world if a horned one 
 
 never had been. 
 Maiden forlorn ! what madness is thine ! 
 
 Like heifers that low. 
 Over the meadows the daughters of 
 
 Proetus roamed in their woe ; 
 None was dishonoured ever by frenzied 
 
 passion as thou ; 
 Often as each would shrink from the 
 
 fancied fear of the plough, 
 Feel for a budding horn on her smooth 
 
 and womanly brow. 
 Maiden forlorn, thou rangest the moun- 
 tain slopes in the quest ! 
 He, with his snow-white side upon soft- 
 est hyacinths pressed. 
 Under a holm-oak dark chews grasses 
 
 bright, or is gone 
 Seeking another bride in the herds. 
 
 Close speedily, maids. 
 Maids of the Dirce fountain, the forest 
 
 covers and glades, 
 
 55 
 
So that our eyes may haply behold, ere 
 evening fades, 
 
 Track of the truant bull. And per- 
 chance this wandering one, 
 
 Tempted by some green meadow, or 
 fain with the others to roam. 
 
 May to Gortyna's stalls by the heifers 
 be piloted home. 
 
 Next, how a Hesperid apple the maiden 
 
 charmed, was his strain : — 
 Moss of the bitter bark round Phaeton's 
 
 sisters again 
 Grew in his song, and to alders immense 
 
 they rose on the plain ; — 
 Then, how as Gallus wandered beside 
 
 Permessian rills. 
 One of the Nine had led him to sweet 
 
 Aonia's hills ; 
 How all Phoebus's choir uprose to salute 
 
 him, and how — 
 Flowerets and bitter parsley adorning 
 
 his heavenly brow — 
 These words Linus had spoken, the 
 
 shepherd and poet divine : 
 " Take these reeds of the meadow, the 
 
 Muses send thee for thine, 
 S6 
 
Once on the singer of Ascra bestowed ; 
 
 wherewith as he blew 
 Down from the mountains often the 
 
 stubborn ashes he drew. 
 With them sweetly recount how the 
 
 Grynian wood was begun, 
 Till among all his forests Apollo be 
 
 prouder of none." 
 
 Need I relate how of Scylla, the daugh- 
 ter of Nisus, he told, 
 Who — with her white waist girdled by 
 
 howling monsters — of old 
 Harried, chroniclers tell us, the Ithacan 
 
 vessels, and gave 
 Trembling crews to be rent of her 
 
 hounds in swirl of the wave ? 
 Or how he sang of the change on the 
 
 body of Tereus wrought. 
 What was the feast Philomela prepared, 
 
 what dainties she brought. 
 How, swift-winged, for the desert she 
 
 made, yet first had been fain — 
 Sad one — over her palace to flutter 
 
 again and again ? 
 All of the songs, that of old from Apollo 
 
 the listening burn, 
 
 57 
 
Blest Eurotas, heard and had bidden his 
 bay trees learn, 
 
 There did he sing. To the stars the re- 
 echoing valleys in turn 
 
 Told it ; till Hesper signalled to fold 
 and to number the sheep, 
 
 Rising with light unwelcome above the 
 Olympian steep. 
 
 58 
 
ECLOGUE VII 
 
 MELIBCEUS 
 
 MELIBCEUS. CORYDON. THYRSIS 
 
 Melibceus 
 
 Under the whispering boughs of a holm- 
 oak Daphnis had lain, 
 
 Thyrsis and Corydon met, for it so had 
 chanced, on the plain. 
 
 One with his goats in milk, and the one 
 with sheep in his care, 
 
 59 
 
Both in the blossom of manhood bright — 
 
 an Arcadian pair — 
 Equal in song, and ready for strain and 
 
 for answering strain. 
 I, while fencing the myrtles young from 
 
 the alpine cold, 
 Miss our sultan goat, who has towards 
 
 them strayed ; and behold 
 Daphnis before me yonder. In turn 
 
 when he sees me again : 
 " Hasten," he cries, " Meliboeus, the 
 
 goat and the kids are to hand ; 
 Rest with us here in the shadow, if thou 
 
 canst leisure command. 
 Hither will come thy kine unsought 
 
 through the meadows to drink ; 
 Here sweet Mincius fringes with young 
 
 spring rushes a brink 
 Grassy and green ; and from Jupiter's 
 
 oak bees cluster and hum." 
 Had I a choice ? Nor Phyllis nor my 
 
 Alcippe had come 
 Homeward to drive to the folding the 
 
 motherless lambkins yet; 
 While *twas a battle of giants — with 
 
 Thyrsis, Corydon met — 
 
 60 
 
Thus my business to their sweet sport 
 
 gave finally way, 
 So in alternate changes began their 
 
 musical play. 
 As was the Muses' pleasure, in turn 
 
 their melodies rang — 
 First came Corydon singing, and after 
 
 him Thyrsis sang. 
 
 Corydon 
 
 Nymphs of Libethra, beloved of my 
 
 heart, vouchsafe me a strain 
 Sweet as ye grant my Codrus ; — his 
 
 songs are next the divine 
 Lays of Apollo ; — or if such grace all 
 
 cannot attain. 
 Here my pipe with her music shall hang 
 
 on your holiest pine. 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 Fair Arcadian shepherds, a poet is born 
 
 in the dale ; 
 Crown him with ivy, till envy the bosom 
 
 of Codrus has wrung. 
 
 6i 
 
If overmuch he applaud me, my forehead 
 
 with foxglove veil, 
 Lest your bard of the future be hurt by 
 
 an enemy's tongue. 
 
 Corydon 
 
 Delia, this boar's head with its bristles, 
 
 and antlers that graced 
 Whilom a veteran stag, young Micon 
 
 bestows upon thee. 
 If still fortune attend him, aloft thyself 
 
 shall be placed. 
 Hewn from the marble, and buskined 
 
 with purple as high as the knee. 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 One milk flagon, Priapus, is all each 
 
 year, with a cake. 
 Thou canst look for : a poor man's croft 
 
 thou boldest in keep. 
 Marble to-day we have made thee; of 
 
 gold hereafter will make. 
 If our ewes that are yeaning replenish 
 
 the tale of the sheep. 
 
 62 
 
Corydi 
 
 on 
 
 Child of the sea, Galatea, than thyme 
 
 Hyblaean to me 
 Sweeter, than swan more fair, more 
 
 lovely than ivies white. 
 Soon as the pastured oxen are homeward 
 
 gone from the lea. 
 Come — for thy shepherd lover if aught 
 
 thou carest — to-night. 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 Let me to thee more bitter than Sardo's 
 
 grasses appear. 
 Rougher than bur, more cheap than the 
 
 seaweed flung on the shore. 
 If I find not to-day more long than a 
 
 lingering year ! 
 Homeward, ye well-fed oxen, for shame's 
 
 sake, tarry no more 1 
 
 Corydon 
 
 Fountains bordered with mosses, and 
 grass more soft than repose. 
 
 63 
 
Arbutus green, whose flickering shade 
 roofs both from the day, 
 
 Shelter the cattle from noontide heat ! 
 Soon summer that glows 
 
 Comes, and the swelling buds on the vine 
 already are gay. 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 Here is a hearth, rich torches that drip, 
 
 here firelight flares 
 Cheerily ; blackened the door with the 
 
 soot that has clung to its planks j 
 Here as little we care for the north winds 
 
 icy, as cares 
 Wolf for the number of sheep or the 
 
 river in flood for the banks. 
 
 Corydon 
 
 Here stand junipers tall, and the chest- 
 nuts prickly in row ; 
 
 Fruits lie strewn and ungathered beneath 
 each bountiful tree ; 
 
 Now all Nature is smiling ; but if from 
 the mountain should go 
 
 64 
 
Lovely Alexis, the rivers themselves will 
 waterless be. 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 Parched is the meadow ; the grass in the 
 
 sick air withers of thirst ; 
 Father Bacchus the shade of his vines to 
 
 the mountain denies. 
 When my Phyllis approaches, the woods 
 
 into blossom will burst. 
 And in a gracious torrent to earth come 
 
 raining the skies. 
 
 Corydon 
 
 Poplars are dear to Alcides ; the vine to 
 
 lacchus the bright. 
 Myrtle to beautiful Venus, to Phoebus 
 
 his favourite bay, 
 Phyllis delights in the hazels, and while 
 
 they are still her delight. 
 Neither shall myrtle be fairer nor bays 
 
 of Phoebus than they. 
 
 6s 
 
Thyrsis 
 
 Ash is the loveliest tree in the forest, in 
 
 gardens the pine, 
 Poplar is queen by the river, the fir upon 
 
 mountains supreme ; 
 Fair Lycidas, come only as guest more 
 
 often of mine, 
 Poor in the forest the ash and the pine 
 
 in the garden will seem. 
 
 Melibceus 
 
 Thus much well I remember, and idle 
 
 were Thyrsis*s pains. 
 Since that day on the mountain alone 
 
 our Corydon reigns. 
 
 66 
 
ECLOGUE VIIL 
 
 PHARMACEUTRIA 
 
 DAMON. ALPHESIBCEUS 
 
 Songs of the shepherds Damon and Al- 
 
 phesiboeus, my theme : 
 Harkening to whom with rapture as each 
 
 in rivalry sung, 
 Heifers forgot their pasture, upon whose 
 
 melodies hung 
 Lynxes smitten with wonder, and every 
 
 listening stream 
 
 67 
 
Loitered with altered current along its 
 
 watery way ; 
 Damon and Alphesiboeus shall be our 
 
 burden to-day. 
 
 Sailing already abreast of the great Tima- 
 
 vus's hill, 
 Whether I find thee, or coasting around 
 
 Illyria still. 
 Comes not the bright day ever when this 
 
 poor tongue shall be free 
 Thy fair deeds to proclaim ? Shall I 
 
 ne'er at liberty be 
 Proudly to waft thy verse o'er earth and 
 
 her every clime, 
 Only of Athens worthy, and buskined 
 
 tragedy's prime ? 
 Thou my Muse's beginning, her song 
 
 shall finish with thee. 
 Take these strains at thy bidding essayed, 
 
 and grant me to lay 
 Round thy brow these ivies to twine with 
 
 the conqueror's bay. 
 
 Hardly as yet from the skies had the 
 night's chill shadow dispersed, 
 
 68 
 
Dew lay sweet on the spring-tide grass 
 
 for the cattle athirst ; 
 Propped on an olive stafF thus sang 
 
 young Damon, the first : 
 
 {Damon sings) 
 
 Rise, fair star of the morning, and herald 
 
 the genial day. 
 I, whom a passion for Nysa the false has 
 
 served to betray, 
 Here will lament ; and to gods — whose 
 
 presence attested in vain 
 Naught has availed me — in death's last 
 
 hour once more will complain. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Maenalus ever has forests that sing to 
 
 him ; ever a sigh 
 Speaks in his pines; to the loves of the 
 
 shepherds he listens for aye ; 
 Hears Pan piping, who brooked not that 
 
 reeds should idle remain. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 69 
 
Nysa with Mopsus weds ; what next is 
 
 a lover to see ? 
 Soon will the griffin be matched with the 
 
 mare, and in summers to be 
 Timid fawns with the hounds come 
 
 down to the pools on the plain. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Hew fresh torches the bridal to grace ; 
 
 thy bride is in sight, 
 Mopsus — the bridegroom thou — go 
 
 scatter the nuts to her train ! 
 Hesper from CEta's summit for thee 
 
 sails into the night. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Worthy the lord they give thee to wed, 
 
 who scornest the world, 
 Holdest the pipe of the shepherd and 
 
 these poor goats in disdain, 
 Thinkest light of a brow untrimmed 
 
 and a beard uncurled. 
 Deeming the gods untroubled by mortal 
 
 passion and pain ! 
 
 70 
 
Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 'T was in our crofts I saw thee, a girl 
 
 thy mother beside. 
 Plucking the apples dewy, myself thy 
 
 pilot and guide ; 
 Years I had finished eleven, the twelfth 
 
 was beginning to reign ; 
 Scarce was I able to reach from the 
 
 ground to the branches that snapt. 
 Ah, when I saw ! how I perished ! to 
 
 fatal folly was rapt ! 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Now have I learned what love is. 
 
 Among rocks savage and wild 
 Tmaros or Rhodope bare him or far 
 
 Garamantes for child, — 
 Mortal his lineage is not, nor human 
 
 blood in his veins. ^ 
 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Masnalus strains. 
 
 Fell love taught one mother her sinful 
 hands to imbrue 
 
 71 
 
Once in her children's blood, and the 
 
 mother was heartless too. 
 Heartless the mother most ? Or was 
 
 love more cruel and fell ? 
 Cruel was love; thou also the mother 
 
 heartless as well. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Now let the wolf turn tail to the sheep ; 
 
 oaks stubborn have power 
 Apples golden to bear, on the alder the 
 
 daffodil flower ! 
 Droppings of amber rich from the bark 
 
 of the tamarisk rain ; 
 Screech-owls vie with the swan, and to 
 
 Orpheus Tityrus change ; 
 Orpheus play for the woods, as Arion 
 
 with dolphins range. 
 Begin, my flute of the mountains, with 
 
 me my Maenalus strain. 
 
 Nay, let the sea drown all. Farewell to 
 
 the woods. I will leap 
 Here from this mountain crest that for 
 
 ever watches the deep ; 
 
 72 
 
This death-song of the dying for last 
 
 sad gift let her keep. 
 Cease, my flute, it is ended, the Maena- 
 
 lus mountain refrain. 
 
 Thus sang Damon. The answer of 
 
 Alphesiboeus again. 
 Muses, recount ! Frail mortals to all 
 
 things cannot attain. 
 
 (Alphesiboeus sings) 
 
 Fetch me the water ; with soft wreaths 
 circle the altar divine ; 
 
 Burn to the gods rich boughs, heap 
 frankincense on the fire ; 
 
 So to the passionless heart of this ice- 
 cold lover of mine 
 
 I may reach with my magic ; it is but a 
 chant we require. 
 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 Chants from her heavenly station can 
 draw down even the moon ! 
 
 Circe once with a chant transformed 
 Ulysses' train. 
 73 
 
Cold snakes split in the meadows asun- 
 der with chant and with tune ! 
 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 These three threads, each tinted a sep- 
 arate colour, I twine 
 
 Round thee first in a circle ; and thrice 
 these altars around 
 
 Carry the image — a number uneven is 
 dear to the shrine ; — 
 
 In three knots, Amaryllis, let each of the 
 colours be wound. 
 
 Wind them, prithee, and cry, " I am 
 weaving Venus's chain." 
 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 As in a fire that is one and the same, 
 
 grows harder the clay. 
 Softer the wax, may Daphnis be wrought 
 
 by passion to-day. 
 Crumble the cake, let the boughs of the 
 
 bay-tree crackle and blaze. 
 Daphnis has fired me with passion, I light 
 
 over Daphnis the bays. 
 
 74 
 
Homeward bring from the city, my 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 May such love upon Daphnis be laid as 
 
 the heifer's, who hies 
 Wearily after her mate thro' the forest 
 
 and hills in the quest. 
 Down by the river bank upon greenest 
 
 sedges she lies, 
 Lost in her grief, nor remembers at 
 
 nightfall late to arise. 
 Such may his love be, nor I care ever to 
 
 heal his unrest. 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 These worn garments he left me, my 
 
 faithless love, as he went ; 
 Pledges dear of himself j — by the door 
 
 let them buried remain. 
 Hold them, O Earth ! they are pledges, 
 
 and owe me the Daphnis I lent. 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 These green herbs, these poisons from 
 Pontus gathered in bloom, 
 
 75 
 
Moeris gave me; in plenty they grow 
 
 on the Pontus plain ; 
 Often the form of a wolf with these I 
 
 have seen him assume, 
 And in the forests plunge, or the ghosts 
 
 call forth from the tomb, 
 Often remove to an alien field rich 
 
 harvests of grain. 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 Carry the ashes without, Amaryllis, and 
 
 into the brook 
 Over thy shoulders fling them, nor 
 
 venture behind thee to look ! 
 These are for Daphnis ; he recks nor of 
 
 gods nor magical strain. 
 Homeward bring from the city, my 
 
 chants, bring Daphnis again. 
 
 Look! As I linger to take it, the 
 cinder itself from the grate 
 
 Catches the altar with flickering flames. 
 Good luck on us wait ! 
 
 Ay, there is something surely, and 
 Hylax barks at the gate ! 
 
 16 
 
Ought I to hope ? Or do lovers their 
 own dreams fashion in vain ? 
 
 Cease, my chants. From the city he 
 comes, my Daphnis, again. 
 
 71 
 
^^^^^^^!^9lm 
 
 r^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 WMmm 
 
 ECLOGUE 
 
 IX. 
 
 
 MCERIS 
 
 
 
 LYCIDAS. MCERIS 
 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 
 
 Whither, Moeris, away ? 
 as travels the road ? 
 
 — to 
 
 the city, 
 
 Moeris 
 
 
 
 Friend, we have lived to a day 
 thought but little to see, 
 78 
 
 , that we 
 
Lived for an alien lord to invade our 
 
 little abode, 
 Crying " Begone old sons of the soil, 
 
 these fields are for me ! " 
 Broken in spirit and sad, since chance 
 
 makes havoc of all. 
 These young kids for a tribute we take 
 
 him — and curses withal ! 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 Surely the tale had reached us, that 
 
 where yon hills from the plain 
 Draw to the sky, and in gentle slopes 
 
 break downwards again. 
 Far as the pool, and the beech-trees old 
 
 whose crests are decayed. 
 All to Menalcas was left in return for 
 
 the verses he made. 
 
 Mceris 
 
 So ye were told ; so rumour was rife ; 
 
 yet verses of ours 
 Are of as little avail, old friend, when 
 
 the battle bolt lowers. 
 
 79 
 
As the Chaonian doves when an eagle 
 
 swoops to the stroke. 
 Had not a raven, perched on the left, 
 
 from a hole in her oak 
 Warned me as best I might to prevent 
 
 the renewal of strife, 
 Neither had I — thy Moeris — escaped, 
 
 nor Menalcas, with life. 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 Breathes there, alas ! so guilty a soul ? 
 
 And were we to be 
 Robbed so nearly, Menalcas, of life's 
 
 sweet solace in thee ? 
 Who was to chant us stories of Nymph- 
 land, blossom and flower 
 Strew on the earth, or the fountains with 
 
 boscage and shade to embower ? 
 Who was to sing us the song that I stole 
 
 from thy lips as I lay, 
 When thou wentest a-courting my love, 
 
 Amaryllis the gay ? 
 " Tityrus, while I am gone — and it is 
 
 but a step to return — 
 Drive my she-goats hence to the meadow, 
 
 and thence to the burn 
 80 
 
When they are fed ; and the while, have, 
 
 Tityrus, ever a care 
 How thou come to the he-goat's horns 
 
 — he is wicked — beware ! " 
 
 Mceris 
 
 Ay, or the still unfinished verse that to 
 
 Varus he gave : 
 " Thy great name, O Varus — do thou 
 
 our Mantua save — 
 Mantua, too near neighbour, alas, of 
 
 Cremona the lost, — 
 Swans in a deathless music shall waft to 
 
 the heavenly host." 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 So past Corsica's yews thy bees un- 
 
 lingering sail ; 
 Fed upon cytisus flowers thy kine grow 
 
 rich for the pail. 
 As thy song thou afford us. For I, 
 
 through grace of the Nine, 
 Poet am also, and singer as thou. By 
 
 swains in the dale 
 
 8i 
 
Bard am yclept j yet little I trust them. 
 
 Nothing of mine 
 Worthy of Varius yet, or of noble Cinna 
 
 I deem ; 
 Am but a cackling gander among sweet 
 
 swans of the stream. 
 
 Maeris 
 
 Yea, O friend, I endeavour — am think- 
 ing once and again — 
 
 How to recall its burden, for not un- 
 worthy the strain. 
 
 " Come, Galatea, where in the waves 
 can a merriment be ? 
 
 Here are the golden blooms of spring j 
 earth bountiful, see. 
 
 Here by the river scatters her bright- 
 hued flowers evermore. 
 
 Over the cavern hangs one poplar of 
 silvery white. 
 
 Lissom vines have woven a roof that 
 shades it from light ; 
 
 Come ! Let the madcap billows in 
 thunder break on the shore." 
 
 82 
 
Lycidas 
 
 What was the song that I heard thee on 
 
 one clear starlight night 
 Singing ? The air I recall, if the words 
 
 I remembered aright. 
 
 Mceris 
 
 " Why still watching the rise of the con- 
 stellations of old, 
 
 Daphnis, with eyes uplifted ? The star 
 of Caesar — behold — 
 
 Star of the Venus-born, has begun its 
 march on the sky ! 
 
 Star whose dawn should gladden the 
 fields with harvest, and dye 
 
 Grapes on the sunlit slopes of the hill to 
 a purple and gold. 
 
 Graft thy pears, O Daphnis, the fruit 
 thy sons shall enjoy." 
 
 Age from us all things takes, e'en mem- 
 ory ; oft as a boy 
 
 Can I remember singing the summer 
 sun to its rest ; 
 
 Now forgotten are all my verses. Gone 
 at the last 
 
 83 
 
Moeris's voice ; their glamour the wolves 
 
 on Moeris have cast ; 
 Often enough will Menalcas himself 
 
 fulfil thy request. 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 All thy many excuses increase my pas- 
 sion the more. 
 
 Come, for the waters silent and listen- 
 ing lie. On the shore 
 
 See, each breath of the murmuring wind 
 has sunk to repose. 
 
 Here we are just half-way on the journey. 
 Visible grows 
 
 Distant Bianor's tomb. So here, where 
 the labourer goes 
 
 Lopping the leafage thick, let us waken, 
 Moeris, the strain. 
 
 Lay on the ground thy kids, and the city 
 betimes we shall gain. 
 
 Or, if we fear lest night overtake us with 
 gathering rain. 
 
 On let us journey singing — a song 
 makes lighter the road — 
 
 I, to assist in the music, will ease thy 
 back of its load. 
 
 84 
 
Mceris 
 
 Ask me no more ; let us hasten to finish 
 
 the tasks that are near ; 
 Better will be our singing, when once 
 
 our Master is here. 
 
 85 
 
ECLOGUE X. 
 GALLUS 
 
 One last labour in song, of thy grace, 
 
 Arethusa, concede. 
 Strains, though few, for my Gallus — 
 
 that even Lycoris may read — 
 Yet must I sing, ere parting. Who 
 
 gives not Gallus a song ? 
 So, when beneath the Sicilian seas thou 
 
 glidest along, 
 
 86 
 
Doris from thine keep ever her brackish 
 waters apart. 
 
 Come; let us tell of the passion con- 
 suming Callus's heart, 
 
 While each flat-nosed goat on the young 
 bush browses at call. 
 
 No deaf ears shall we sing to; the 
 woods make answer to all. 
 
 Nymphs of the stream, what glades, what 
 forest detained ye the day 
 
 When with a love unrequited my Cal- 
 lus wasted away ? 
 
 Never a height of Parnassus, of Pindus 
 never a mount 
 
 Stayed ye, nor yet Aganippe, the fair 
 Aonian fount. 
 
 Even the bay-trees wept him, the tama- 
 risk gave him a tear ; 
 
 Pine-clad Maenalus mourned as beneath 
 his precipice drear 
 
 Lonely he lay; and the rocks of the 
 frosty Lycaeus repined. 
 
 All of his sheep stand round him ; — they 
 feel no shame of mankind ; 
 
 Nor thou, heavenliest singer, do thou feel 
 shame of thy sheep ; 
 
 87 
 
Flocks himself by the river the lovely 
 Adonis did keep. 
 
 Thither the shepherds came, and the 
 
 swineherds tardy at last ; 
 Thither Menalcas, drenched from his 
 
 winter storing of mast. 
 " Whence this passion ? " they ask him. 
 
 Apollo came, the divine : 
 " Gallus," he cries, " what madness ! 
 
 The lovely Lycoris of thine 
 Follows another love through a wild 
 
 camp-life and the snows." 
 Thither arrived Silvanus, his brows with 
 
 greenery fine. 
 Nodding his giant lilies and fennel flowers 
 
 as he goes. 
 
 Pan of Arcadia next — ourselves we 
 beheld him — he came — 
 
 Blood-red berries of elder, and all ver- 
 milion flame, — 
 
 " Grieving forever ! " he saith. " Wild 
 grief Love little esteems ; 
 
 Neither is fierce Love sated with tears, 
 nor the meadow with streams. 
 
 88 
 
Nor with the cytisus blossom the bee, 
 nor the goat with the leaf." 
 
 Sadly he answers : " At least some day 
 
 ye will sing of my grief 
 Unto your hills, Arcadians ; — alone, 
 
 Arcadians, chief 
 Masters of song. How gently, methinks, 
 
 my bones would repose 
 Should your pipes hereafter relate my 
 
 love and its woes ! 
 Would of a truth I among you were 
 
 one ! your sheep were it mine 
 Daily to tend, or be dresser in vintage- 
 time of the vine ! 
 Then at the least whether Phyllis it were, 
 
 or Amyntas, my spark. 
 Or some other, that kindled — and what 
 
 if Amyntas be dark. 
 Dark is the violet's beauty, and dark is 
 
 the hyacinth's pride — 
 Here they would lie among willows 
 
 beneath long vines at my side ; 
 Phyllis gather me flowers, and Amyntas 
 
 sing me his lay. 
 Here are the cold, clear fountains, the 
 
 waving meadow is gay ; 
 
 89 
 
Here are the forest shadows ; and here 
 
 life ever should glide, 
 Glide of itself, O Lycoris, beside thee 
 
 gently away. 
 
 "Now by insensate passion of savage 
 
 war I am here 
 Stayed — my face to the foeman, en- 
 compassed around by the spear. 
 Thou — yet far be the fancy — remote 
 
 from the land that is thine, 
 Lookest on Alpine snows — cold heart 
 
 — and the winters of Rhine, 
 Lonely, without my love. May frosts 
 
 thy feebleness spare ! 
 Ah, may the splinters icy thy delicate 
 
 feet forbear ! 
 I will away ; and the verses I wrought 
 
 in the Chalcis mould 
 Set to the pipe and the music of Sicily's 
 
 shepherd of old. 
 Rather had I in the forest, the wild 
 
 beasts' caverns among, 
 Bear what awaits me, carving my love 
 
 on the trees that are young. 
 So, as the trees grow upward, my love 
 
 shall grow with them too. 
 90 
 
There meanwhile with the nymphs I will 
 
 roam great Maenalus through 
 Hunting the savage boar. No frosts of 
 
 the winter shall make 
 Me and my hounds cease ranging the 
 
 high Parthenian brake. 
 Over the rocks, methinks, and the ring- 
 ing covers I go. 
 Sweeping already in chase; with joy 
 
 from the Parthian bow 
 Winging the Cretan arrow; as though 
 
 this medicine healed 
 Love like mine ! or the Love-god to 
 
 human sorrow would yield ! 
 Vain is the dream — Hamadryads no 
 
 more, nor pastoral strain 
 Bring me delight. Farewell, farewell to 
 
 the forests again ! 
 Love is a god no toils can appease, no 
 
 misery melt. 
 No, not in iciest frosts by the Hebrus*s 
 
 waves if we dwelt. 
 Nor if Sithonian snows we endured, and 
 
 winters of sleet ; 
 Or, when the dying bark on the tall elm 
 
 withered with heat. 
 
 91 
 
Sheep for an ^thiop master beneath 
 fierce Cancer we drove. — 
 
 All things else Love conquers; let us 
 too yield unto Love." 
 
 Muses, enough ye will deem your poet 
 
 already has sung, 
 Sitting and weaving a basket of slender 
 
 mallows and young. 
 Ye of your grace will make it of worth 
 
 in Gallus's eyes — 
 Gallus, for whom my love grows hour 
 
 by hour, as arise 
 Hourly the alders green in the new-born 
 
 spring to the skies. 
 Let us be going ; the shade for a singer 
 
 is deadly and chill ; 
 Chill is the juniper's shade ; for the corn 
 
 all shade is an ill. 
 Homeward, Hesperus comes — ye have 
 
 fed, my goats, to your fill. 
 
 92 
 
iENEAS' VISIT TO 
 AVERNUS 
 
 {From the ^neid) 
 
iENEAS' VISIT TO 
 AVERNUS 
 
 THE ARRIVAL IN ITALY 
 
 Weeping he spake, then gave to his 
 
 flying vessels the rein, 
 Gliding at last on the wind to Euboean 
 
 Cumae*s plain. 
 Seaward the bows are pointed, an anchor's 
 
 hook to the land 
 
 95 
 
Fastens the ships, and the sterns in a long 
 
 line border the strand. 
 Troy's young warriors leap with exultant 
 
 hearts from the bark 
 Forth upon Italy's soil. Some look for 
 
 the fiery spark 
 Hid in the secret veins of the flint ; some 
 
 scour the profound 
 Forest, and wild beasts' cover, and show 
 
 where waters abound. 
 While the devout JEnczs a temple seeks 
 
 on the height, 
 Phoebus's mountain throne, and a cavern 
 
 vast as the night. 
 Where in mysterious darkness the terrible 
 
 Sibyl lies. 
 Maiden upon whose spirit the Delian seer 
 
 of the skies 
 Breathes his immortal thought, and the 
 
 knowledge of doom untold. 
 Soon they arrive at Diana's grove and 
 
 her palace of gold. 
 
 Flying, as legends tell, from the thraldom 
 
 of Minos the king, 
 Daedalus, trusting the heavens, set forth 
 
 on adventurous wing, 
 
 96 
 
Sailed for the ice-bound north by a way 
 
 unimagined and strange ; 
 Airily poising at last upon this Chalcidian 
 
 range, 
 Here first touching the land, to Apollo 
 
 hallowed his light 
 Oarage of wings ; and a temple colossal 
 
 built on the site. 
 Graved on the doors is the death of 
 
 Androgeos ; yonder in turn 
 Attica's land, condemned each year in 
 
 atonement to yield 
 Seven of her children ; the lots are drawn, 
 
 still standing the urn ; 
 Rising from midmost ocean, to match 
 
 them, Crete is revealed. 
 Here is the gloomy romance of the bull, 
 
 Pasiphae's blind 
 Passion ; and twiformed Minotaur, two 
 
 bodies combined. 
 Record of lawless love ; there, marvellous 
 
 labour, were shaped 
 Palace and winding mazes, from whence 
 
 no feet had escaped. 
 Had not Daedalus pitied the lorn princess 
 
 and her love. 
 
 97 
 
And of himself unentangled the woven 
 
 trick of the grove, 
 Guiding her saviour's steps with a thread. 
 
 Thee, too, he had wrought, 
 Icarus, into the picture, had grief not 
 
 baffled the thought. 
 Twice he essayed upon gold to engrave 
 
 thine agony, twice 
 Faltered the hands of the father, and fell. 
 
 Each noble device 
 Long their eyes had perused, but Achates 
 
 now is in sight ; 
 With him the priestess comes, dread 
 
 servant of Phoebus and Night, 
 Daughter of Glaucus the seer. To the 
 
 Trojan monarch she cries : 
 " *T is not an hour, ^neas, for feasting 
 
 yonder thine eyes. 
 Better to slaughter from herds unyoked 
 
 seven oxen and seven 
 Ewes of the yester year, as a choice 
 
 oblation to Heaven." 
 Then, as the ministers hasten the rites 
 
 ordained to prepare. 
 Into the depth of the temple she bids 
 
 Troy's children repair. 
 
 98 
 
There is a cavern hewn in the mountain's 
 
 enormous side, 
 Reached by a hundred gates, and a hun- 
 dred passages wide. 
 Thence roll voices a hundred, the seer's 
 
 revelations divine. 
 When by the doors they stood : " 'T is 
 
 the hour to inquire of the shrine," 
 Cried the illumined maiden : " The God ! 
 
 lo, here is the God ! " 
 Even as she spake, while still on the 
 
 threshold only she trod. 
 Sudden her countenance altered, her 
 
 cheek grew pale as in death, 
 Loose and disordered her fair hair flew, 
 
 heart panted for breath. 
 Bosom with madness heaved. More lofty 
 
 than woman's her frame. 
 More than mortal her voice, as the 
 
 presence of Deity came 
 Nearer upon her. " And art thou slow 
 
 to petition the shrine, 
 Troy's iEneas a laggard at prayer ? — 
 
 nought else will incline 
 This charmed temple," she cries, " its 
 
 colossal doors to unclose." 
 
 99 
 
Then stands silent. The veteran bones 
 
 of the Teucrians froze, 
 Chilled with terror, and prayer from the 
 
 heart of the monarch arose : 
 " Phoebus ! compassionate ever to Troy 
 
 in the hour of her woe. 
 Who against haughty Achilles of old 
 
 didst prosper the bow 
 Bent by the Dardan Paris, beneath thine 
 
 auspices led 
 Many a sea I have travelled around great 
 
 continents spread. 
 Far as Massylian tribes and the quick- 
 sands lining their plain. 
 Italy's vanishing regions, behold, thy 
 
 people attain ! 
 Here may the evil fate of the Trojans 
 
 leave us at last ! 
 Spare, for *t is mercy's hour, this remnant 
 
 of Pergama's race, 
 Gods and goddesses all, whose jealous 
 
 eyes in the past 
 Looked upon Ilion's glories ! From thee 
 
 I implore one grace. 
 Prophet of Heaven, dark seer of the 
 
 future. Grant us the debt, 
 
 100 
 
Long by the destinies owed us — a king- 
 dom promised of yore — 
 
 Foot upon Latium*s borders at length 
 may Teucrians set, 
 
 Bearing their household gods by the 
 tempests tossed evermore ! 
 
 I, their votary grateful, in PhcEbus* and 
 Trivia's praise 
 
 Hewn from the solid marble a glorious 
 fane will raise. 
 
 Call by Apollo's name his festival. Also 
 for thee 
 
 Shall in our future kingdom a shrine 
 imperial be. 
 
 There shall thine own dark sayings, the 
 mystic fates of our line. 
 
 Gracious seer, be installed, and a priest- 
 hood chosen be thine. 
 
 Only entrust not to leaves thy prophecy, 
 maiden divine. 
 
 Lest in disorder, the light winds' sport, 
 they be driven on the air; 
 
 Chant thyself the prediction." His lips 
 here ended from prayer. 
 
 Still untamed of Apollo, to stature terrible 
 grown, 
 
 lOI 
 
Raves the prophetic maid in her cavern, 
 
 fain to dethrone 
 This great God who inspires her — the 
 
 more with bit doth he school 
 Fiery mouth and rebellious bosom and 
 
 mould her to rule. 
 Wide on a sudden the hundred enor- 
 mous mouths of her lair 
 Fly, of themselves unclosing, and an- 
 swer floats on the air : 
 " Thou who hast ended at last with the 
 
 dangers dread of the sea, 
 Greater on land still wait thee. Lavin- 
 
 ium's kingdom afar 
 Teucria*s children shall find — of that 
 
 ancient terror be free — 
 Yet shall repent to have found it. I see 
 
 grim visions of war, 
 Tiber foaming with blood. Once more 
 
 shall a Simois flow, 
 Xanthus be there once more, and the 
 
 tents of a Dorian foe. 
 Yonder in Latium rises a second Achilles, 
 
 and born. 
 Even as the first, of a goddess; and 
 
 neither at night nor at morn 
 
 I02 
 
Ever shall Juno leave thee, the Trojans' 
 
 enemy sworn, 
 While thou pleadest for succour, besieg- 
 ing in misery sore 
 Each far people and city around Ausonia's 
 
 shore ! 
 So shall a bride from the stranger again 
 
 thy nation destroy, 
 Once more foreign espousals a great woe 
 
 bring upon Troy. 
 Yield not thou to disasters, confront 
 
 them boldly, and more 
 Boldly — as fortune suffers — and first 
 
 from a town of the Greek, 
 Marvel to say, shall be shown thee the 
 
 way salvation to seek." 
 
 So from her awful shrine the Cumaean 
 
 Sibyl intones 
 Fate's revelation dread, till the cavern 
 
 echoes her groans. 
 Robing her truths in gloom. So shakes, 
 
 as she fumes in unrest, 
 Phoebus his bridle reins, while plunging 
 
 the spur in her breast. 
 After her madness ceased and her lips of 
 
 frenzy were still, 
 103 
 
Thus ^neas replied : " No vision, lady, 
 
 of ill 
 Comes unimagined now to the exile 
 
 here at thy door ; 
 Each has he counted and traverst already 
 
 in spirit before. 
 One sole grace I entreat — since these 
 
 be the gates, it is said, 
 Sacred to Death and the twilight lake by 
 
 the Acheron fed — 
 Leave to revisit the face of the sire I 
 
 have loved so well ; 
 Teach me the way thyself, and unlock 
 
 yon portals of hell. 
 This was the sire I bore on my shoulders 
 
 forth from the flame. 
 Brought thro' a thousand arrows, that vext 
 
 our flight as we came 
 Safe from the ranks of the foemen. He 
 
 shared my journey with me ; 
 Weak as he was, braved ocean, the 
 
 threats of sky and of sea ; 
 More than the common strength or the 
 
 common fate of the old. 
 'T is at his bidding, his earnest prayer 
 
 long since, I am fain 
 
 104 
 
Thus in petition to seek thy gate. With 
 
 compassion behold 
 Father and son, blest maid, for untold 
 
 thy power, nor in vain 
 Over the groves of Avernus hath Hecate 
 
 set thee to reign. 
 Grace was to Orpheus granted, his bride 
 
 from the shadows to bring. 
 Strong in the power of his lyre and. its 
 
 sounding Thracian string. 
 Still in his turn dies Pollux, a brother's 
 
 life to redeem. 
 Travels and ever retravels the journey. 
 
 Why of the great 
 Theseus tell thee, or why of Alcides 
 
 mighty relate ? 
 My race, even as theirs, is descended 
 
 from Jove the supreme." 
 So evermore he repeated, and still to the 
 
 altar he clung. 
 She in reply : " Great Hero, of heaven's 
 
 high lineage sprung. 
 Son of Anchises of Troy, the descent to 
 
 Avernus is light; 
 Death's dark gates stand open, alike 
 
 thro' the day and the night. 
 
 105 
 
But to retrace thy steps and emerge to 
 
 the sunlight above, 
 This is the toil and the trouble. A few, 
 
 whom Jupiter's love 
 Favours, or whose bright valour has raised 
 
 them thence to the skies, 
 Born of the gods, have succeeded. On 
 
 this side wilderness lies. 
 Black Cocytus around it his twilight 
 
 waters entwines. 
 Still, if such thy desire, and if thus thy 
 
 spirit inclines 
 Twice to adventure the Stygian lake, 
 
 twice look on the dark 
 Tartarus, and it delights thee on quest 
 
 so wild to embark. 
 Learn what first to perform. On a tree 
 
 no sun that receives 
 Hides one branch all golden — its yield- 
 ing stem and its leaves — 
 Sacred esteemed to the queen of the 
 
 shadows. Forests of night 
 Cover it, sloping valleys enclose it around 
 
 from the light. 
 Subterranean gloom and its mysteries 
 
 only may be 
 
 io6 
 
Reacht by the mortal who gathers the 
 
 golden growth of the tree. 
 This for her tribute chosen the lovely 
 
 Proserpina needs 
 Aye to be brought her. The one 
 
 bough broken, another succeeds, 
 Also of gold, and the spray bears leaf of 
 
 a metal as bright. 
 Deep in the forest explore, and if once 
 
 thou find it aright. 
 Pluck it ; the branch will follow, of its 
 
 own grace and design. 
 Should thy destiny call thee ; or else no 
 
 labour of thine 
 Ever will move it, nor ever thy hatchet 
 
 conquer its might. 
 Yea, and the corpse of a friend, although 
 
 thou know'st not," she saith, 
 "Lies upon shore unburied, and taints 
 
 thy vessels with death. 
 While thou tarriest here at the gate thy 
 
 future to know. 
 Carry him home to his rest, in the grave 
 
 his body bestow ; 
 Death's black cattle provide for the altar ; 
 
 give to the shades 
 
 107 
 
This first lustral oblation, and so on the 
 Stygian glades. 
 
 Even on realms where never the feet of 
 the living come. 
 
 Thou shalt finally look." Then, clos- 
 ing her lips, she was dumb. 
 
 Sadly, with downcast eyes, iEneas turns 
 
 to depart. 
 Leaving the cave; on the issues dark 
 
 foretold by her words 
 Pondering much in his bosom. Achates, 
 
 trusty of heart. 
 Paces beside him, plunged in a musing 
 
 deep as his lord's. 
 Many the troubled thoughts that in rang- 
 ing talk they pursue — 
 Who is the dead companion the priestess 
 
 spake of, and who 
 Yonder unburied lies ? And advancing 
 
 thither, they find 
 High on the beach Misenus, to death 
 
 untimely consigned, 
 ^olus-born Misenus, than whom no 
 
 trumpeter bright 
 Blew more bravely for battle, or fired 
 
 with music the fight ; 
 io8 
 
Comrade of Hector great, who at 
 
 Hector's side to the war 
 Marched, by his soldier's spear and his 
 
 trumpet known from afar. 
 After triumphant Achilles his master 
 
 slew with the sword, 
 Troy's ^neas he followed, a no less 
 
 glorious lord. 
 Now while over the deep he was sound- 
 ing his clarion sweet. 
 In wild folly defying the Ocean Gods 
 
 to compete. 
 Envious Triton, lo ! — if the legend 
 
 merit belief — 
 Drowned him, before he was ware, in 
 
 the foaming waves of a reef. 
 All now, gathered around him, uplift 
 
 their voices in grief. 
 Foremost the faithful chieftain. Anon 
 
 to their tasks they hie ; 
 Speed, though weeping sorely, the Sibyl's 
 
 mission, and vie. 
 Building the funeral altar with giant 
 
 trees to the sky. 
 
 Into the forest primaeval, the beasts' 
 dark cover, they go ; 
 109 
 
Pine-trees fall with a crash and the 
 holm-oaks ring to the blow. 
 
 Ash-hewn timbers and fissile oaks with 
 the wedges are rent ; 
 
 Massive ash-trees roll from the moun- 
 tains down the descent. 
 
 Foremost strides iEneas, as ever, guid- 
 ing the way, 
 
 Cheering his men, and equipped with a 
 forester's axe as they. 
 
 Long in his own sad thoughts he is 
 plunged — then raising his eyes 
 
 Over the measureless forest, uplifts his 
 prayer to the skies. 
 
 " O that in this great thicket the golden 
 branch of the tree 
 
 Might be revealed! For in all she 
 related yonder of thee 
 
 Ever, alas ! Misenus, the prophetess 
 spake too true." 
 
 Lo ! at the words twain doves came 
 down through the heavenly blue. 
 
 And at his side on the green turf lighted. 
 The hero of Troy 
 
 Knows the celestial birds of his mother, 
 and cries with joy : 
 
 no 
 
" Guide us, if ever a way be, and cleav- 
 ing swiftly the skies. 
 Wing for the grove where in shadow a 
 
 golden branch overlies 
 One all-favoured spot. Nor do thou in 
 
 an hour that is dark. 
 Mother, desert thy son ! " So saying, 
 
 he pauses to mark 
 What be the omens, and whither the 
 
 birds go. They in their flight, 
 Soaring, and lighting to feed, keep still 
 
 in the Teucrians* sight. 
 When they have come to the valley of 
 
 baleful Avernus, the pair. 
 Shooting aloft, float up through a bright 
 
 and radiant air; 
 Both on a tree they have chosen at 
 
 length their pinions fold 
 Through whose branches of green is a 
 
 wavering glimmer of gold. 
 As in the winter forest a mistletoe often 
 
 ye see 
 Bearing a foliage young, no growth of 
 
 its own oak-tree. 
 Circling the rounded boles with a leafage 
 
 of yellowing bloom ; 
 
 III 
 
Such was the branching gold, as it shone 
 
 through the holm-oak's gloom, 
 So in the light wind rustled the foil. 
 
 JEneas with bold 
 Ardour assails it, breaks from the tree 
 
 the reluctant gold ; 
 Then to the Sibyl's palace in triumph 
 
 carries it home. 
 
 Weeping for dead Misenus the Trojan 
 
 host on the shore 
 Now to his thankless ashes the funeral 
 
 offerings bore. 
 Rich with the resinous pine and in oak- 
 hewn timbers cased 
 Rises a giant pyre, in its sides dark foliage 
 
 laced ; 
 Planted in front stand branches of cypress, 
 
 gifts to the grave ; 
 Over it hang for adornment the gleaming 
 
 arms of the brave. 
 Some heat fountain water, the bubbling 
 
 caldron prepare ; 
 Clay-cold limbs then wash and anoint. 
 
 Wail sounds on the air. 
 Dirge at an end, the departed is placed 
 
 on the funeral bed ; 
 112 
 
O'er him they fling bright raiment, the 
 
 wonted attire of the dead. 
 Others shoulder the ponderous bier, sad 
 
 service of death ; 
 Some in ancestral fashion the lighted 
 
 torches beneath 
 Hold with averted eyes. High blaze on 
 
 the burning pyre 
 Incense, funeral viands, and oil outpoured 
 
 on the fire. 
 After the ashes have fallen and flames 
 
 are leaping no more, 
 Wine on the smouldering relics and 
 
 cinders thirsty they pour. 
 Next in a vessel of brass Corynaeus gath- 
 ers the bones. 
 Thrice bears pure spring water around 
 
 Troy's sorrowing sons. 
 Sprinkles it o'er them in dew, from the 
 
 bough of an olive in bloom. 
 Gives lustration to all, then bids farewell 
 
 to the tomb. 
 But the devout i^neas a vast grave 
 
 builds on the shore. 
 Places upon it the warrior's arms, his 
 
 trumpet and oar, 
 
 113 
 
Close to the sky-capped hill that from 
 
 hence Misenus is hight. 
 Keeping through endless ages his glorious 
 
 memory bright. 
 
 114 
 
THE DESCENT TO AVERNUS 
 
 Finished the task, to accomplish the 
 
 Sibyl's behest they sped. 
 There was a cavern deep, — with a 
 
 yawning throat and a dread, — 
 Shingly and rough, by a sombre lake and 
 
 a forest of night 
 Sheltered from all approach. No bird 
 
 wings safely her flight 
 Over its face, — from the gorges exhales 
 
 such poisonous breath, 
 lis 
 
Rising aloft to the skies in a vapour laden 
 
 with death. 
 Here four sable oxen the priestess ranges 
 
 in line ; 
 Empties on every forehead a brimming 
 
 beaker of wine ; 
 Casts on the altar-fire, as the first-fruits 
 
 due to the dead, 
 Hair from between both horns of the 
 
 victim, plucked from its head ; 
 Loudly on Hecate calls, o'er heaven and 
 
 the shadows supreme. 
 Others handle the knife, and receive, as 
 
 it trickles, the stream 
 Warm from the throat in a bowl. 
 
 JEnc2iS with falchion bright 
 Slays himself one lamb of a sable fleece 
 
 to the fell 
 Mother and queen of the Furies, and 
 
 great Earth, sister of Night, 
 Killing a barren heifer to thee, thou 
 
 mistress of Hell. 
 Next for the Stygian monarch a twilight 
 
 altar he lays ; 
 Flings on the flames whole bodies of 
 
 bulls unquartered to blaze, 
 
 Ii6 
 
Pours rich oil from above upon entrails 
 
 burning and bright. 
 When, at the earliest beam of the sun, 
 
 and the dawn of the light. 
 Under his feet earth mutters, the moun- 
 tain forests around 
 Seem to be trembling, and hell dogs bay 
 
 from the shadow profound. 
 Night's dark goddess approaching. 
 
 " Avaunt, ye unhallowed, avaunt ! " 
 Thunders the priestess. ^' Away from a 
 
 grove that is Hecate's haunt. 
 Make for the pathway, thou, and un- 
 
 sheath thy sword ; thou hast need, 
 Now, iEneas, of all thy spirit and valour 
 
 indeed ! " 
 When she had spoken, she plunged in 
 
 her madness into the cave; 
 Not less swiftly he follows, with feet 
 
 unswerving and brave. 
 
 Gods ! whose realm is the spirit-world, 
 mute shadows of might. 
 
 Chaos, and Phlegethon thou, broad king- 
 doms of silence and night. 
 
 Leave vouchsafe me to tell the tradition, 
 grace to exhume 
 117 
 
Things in the deep earth hidden and 
 drowned in the hollows of gloom. 
 
 So unseen thro* darkness, amid lone night, 
 they strode 
 
 Down the unpeopled realm of Death, 
 and his ghostly abode. 
 
 As men journey in woods when a doubt- 
 ful moon has bestowed 
 
 Little of light, when Jove has concealed 
 in shadow the heaven. 
 
 When from the world by sombre Night 
 Day's colours are driven. 
 
 Facing the porch itself, in the jaws of the 
 
 gate of the dead. 
 Grief, and Remorse the Avenger, have 
 
 built their terrible bed. 
 There dwells pale-cheeked Sickness, and 
 
 Old Age sorrowful-eyed. 
 Fear, and the temptress Famine, and 
 
 hideous Want at her side. 
 Grim and tremendous shapes. There 
 
 Death with Labour is joined. 
 Sleep, half-brother of Death, and the 
 
 Joys unclean of the mind. 
 
 Il8 
 
Murderous Battle is campt on the 
 threshold. Fronting the door 
 
 The iron cells of the Furies, and frenzied 
 Strife, evermore 
 
 Wreathing her serpent tresses with gar- 
 lands dabbled in gore. 
 
 Thick with gloom, an enormous elm in 
 the midst of the way 
 
 Spreads its time-worn branches and limbs: 
 false Dreams, we are told. 
 
 Make their abode thereunder, and nestle 
 to every spray. 
 
 Many and various monsters, withal, wild 
 things to behold. 
 
 Lie in the gateway stabled — the awful 
 Centaurs of old ; 
 
 Scyllas with forms half-human; and 
 there with his hundred hands 
 
 Dwells Briareus ; and the shapeless Hy- 
 dra of Lerna*s lands. 
 
 Horribly yelling; in flaming mail the 
 Chimaera arrayed ; 
 
 Gorgons and Harpies, and one three- 
 bodied and terrible Shade. 
 
 119 
 
Clasping his sword, ^neas in sudden 
 
 panic of fear 
 Points its blade at the legion ; and had 
 
 not the Heaven-taught seer 
 Warned him the phantoms are thin 
 
 apparitions, clothed in a vain 
 Semblance of form, but in substance a 
 
 fluttering bodiless train, 
 Idly his weapon had slashed the advancing 
 
 shadows in twain. 
 
 120 
 
THE RIVER OF ACHERON 
 
 Here is the path to the river of Acheron, 
 ever by mud 
 
 Clouded, for ever seething with wild, 
 insatiate flood 
 
 Downward, and into Cocytus disgorging 
 its endless sands. 
 
 Sentinel over its waters an awful ferry- 
 man stands, 
 
 Charon, grisly and rugged ; a growth of 
 centuries lies 
 
 121 
 
Hoary and rough on his chin ; as a flam- 
 ing furnace his eyes. 
 
 Hung in a loop from his shoulders a foul 
 scarf round him he ties ; 
 
 Now with his pole impelling the boat, 
 now trimming the sail, 
 
 Urging his steel-gray bark with its burden 
 of corpses pale, 
 
 Aged in years, but a god's old age is un- 
 withered and hale. 
 
 Down to the bank of the river the stream- 
 ing shadows repair. 
 
 Mothers, and men, and the lifeless bodies 
 of those who were 
 
 Generous heroes, boys that are beardless, 
 maids unwed. 
 
 Sons borne forth in the sight of their 
 sires to the pile of the dead. 
 
 Many as forest leaves that in autumn's 
 earliest frost 
 
 Flutter and fall, or as birds that in bevies 
 flock to the coast 
 
 Over the sea's deep hollows, when win- 
 ter, chilly and frore. 
 
 Drives them across far waters to land on 
 a sunnier shore. 
 
 122 
 
Yonder they stood, each praying for 
 
 earliest passage, and each 
 Eagerly straining his hands in desire of 
 
 the opposite beach. 
 Such as he lists to the vessel the boatman 
 
 gloomy receives. 
 Far from the sands of the river the rest 
 
 he chases and leaves. 
 
 Moved at the wild uproar, iEneas, with 
 
 riveted eyes : 
 " Why thus crowd to the water the 
 
 shadows, priestess ? " he cries ; 
 " What do the spirits desire ? And why 
 
 go some from the shore 
 Sadly away, while others are ferried the 
 
 dark stream o'er ? " 
 
 Briefly the aged priestess again made 
 
 answer and spake : 
 " Son of Anchises, sprung most surely 
 
 from gods upon high. 
 Yon is the deep Cocytus marsh, and the 
 
 Stygian lake. 
 Even the Immortals fear to attest its 
 
 presence and lie ! 
 
 123 
 
These are a multitude helpless, of spirit 
 lacking a grave ; 
 
 Charon the ferryman ; yonder the buried, 
 crossing the wave. 
 
 Over the awful banks and the hoarse- 
 voiced torrents of doom 
 
 None may be taken before their bones 
 find rest in a tomb. 
 
 Hundreds of years they wander, and flit 
 round river and shore. 
 
 Then to the lake they long for are free 
 
 Silent the hero gazed and his footstep 
 
 halted, his mind 
 Filled with his own sad thoughts and 
 
 compassion of doom unkind. 
 Yonder he notes, in affliction, deprived 
 
 of the dues of the dead. 
 Near Leucaspis, Orontes who Lycia*s 
 
 vessels had led. 
 Over the wind-tost waters from Troy 
 
 as together they drave, 
 One wild storm overtook them, engulfing 
 
 vessels and brave. 
 Yonder, behold, Palinurus the pilot 
 
 gloomily went, 
 124 
 
Who, while sailing from Libya's shores, 
 
 on the planets intent. 
 Fell but of late from the stern, and was 
 
 lost in a watery waste. 
 Hardly he knows him at first, as in 
 
 shadow sadly he paced ; 
 Then at the last breaks silence and 
 
 cries : " What God can it be 
 Robbed us of thee, Palinurus, and 
 
 drowned thee deep in the sea ? 
 Answer me thou ! For Apollo I ne'er 
 
 found false till to-day ; 
 Only in this one thing hath his prophecy 
 
 led us astray. 
 Safe with life from the deep to Italian 
 
 shores, we were told. 
 Thou should'st come at the last ! Is it 
 
 thus that his promises hold ? " 
 
 " Son of Anchises," he answers, 
 
 " Apollo's tripod and shrine 
 Have not lied ; no god overwhelmed me 
 
 thus in the brine. 
 True to my trust I was holding the helm, 
 
 stood ruling the course. 
 When by sad misadventure I wrencht it 
 
 loose, and perforce 
 125 
 
Trailed it behind in my fall. By the 
 
 cruel waters I swear 
 Fear of mine own life truly I knew not, 
 
 felt but a care 
 Lest thy bark, of her rudder bereft, and 
 
 her helmsman lost, • 
 Might be unequal to combat the wild 
 
 seas round her that tost. 
 Three long nights of the winter, across 
 
 great waters and wide. 
 Violent south winds swept me ; at fourth 
 
 day's dawn I descried 
 Italy's coast, as I rose on the crest of a 
 
 wave of the sea. 
 Stroke by stroke I was swimming ashore, 
 
 seemed nearly to be 
 Safe from the billows ; and weighted by 
 
 dripping garments I clave. 
 Clutching my hands, to the face of a 
 
 cliff that towered on the wave. 
 When wild people assailed me, a treasure- 
 trove to their mind. 
 Now are the waves my masters ; I toss 
 
 on the beach in the wind. 
 O ! by the pleasant sun, by the joyous 
 
 light of the skies, 
 
 126 
 
By thy sire, and lulus, the rising hope 
 
 of thine eyes, 
 Save me from these great sorrows, my 
 
 hero ! Over me pour 
 Earth, as in truth thou canst, and return 
 
 to the Velian shore. 
 Else, if a heavenly mother hath shown 
 
 thee yonder a way, — 
 Since some god's own presence, me- 
 
 thinks, doth guide thee, who here 
 Seekest to cross these streams and the 
 
 Stygian marshes drear, — 
 Give thy hand to thy servant, and take 
 
 him with thee to-day. 
 So that in quiet places his wearied head 
 
 he may lay ! " 
 Thus, sad phantom, he cried ; thus an- 
 swered the seer of the shrine : 
 " Whence, Palinurus, comes this ill- 
 omened longing of thine ? 
 Thou cast eyes, unburied, on Stygian 
 
 waves, the severe 
 Stream of the Furies, approach unbidden 
 
 the banks of the mere ! 
 Cease thy dream that the Fates by prayer 
 
 may be ever appeased, 
 
 127 
 
Yet keep this in remembrance, that so 
 
 thy lot may be eased : — 
 Many a neighbouring people from cities 
 
 far and unknown, 
 Taught by prodigies dire of the skies, 
 
 thy bones shall atone. 
 Building thy tomb, and remitting their 
 
 gifts each year to thy ghost ; 
 So Palinurus' name shall for ever cleave 
 
 to the coast." 
 Thus his affliction she soothes. For a 
 
 little season his sad 
 Spirit has comfort; he thinks on his 
 
 namesake land and is glad. 
 
 AtUV 
 
 128 
 
THE CROSSING OF THE STYX 
 
 Thence they advance on the journey 
 
 and now draw near to the flood. 
 Soon as the boatman saw them, from 
 
 where on the water he stood, 
 Move through the silent forest and bend 
 
 their steps to the beach, 
 Ere they arrive he accosts them, and first 
 
 breaks silence in speech. 
 " Stranger, approaching in arms our river, 
 
 whoever thou art, 
 129 
 
Speak on the spot thine errand, and hold 
 
 thee farther apart. 
 This is the kingdom of shadows, of sleep 
 
 and the slumberous dark ; 
 Bodies of living men are forbidden the 
 
 Stygian bark. 
 Not of mine own good will was Alcides 
 
 over the wave 
 Yonder, or Theseus taken, nor yet Piri- 
 
 thous brave, 
 Though from gods they descended, and 
 
 matchless warriors were ; 
 One from the monarch's presence to 
 
 chains sought boldly to bear 
 Hell's unslumbering warder, and trailed 
 
 him trembling away. 
 Two from her bridal chamber conspired 
 
 Death's queen to convey." 
 
 Briefly again makes answer the great 
 
 Amphrysian seer: 
 "Here no cunning awaits thee as theirs 
 
 was, far be the fear. 
 Violence none our weapons prepare ; 
 
 Hell's warder may still 
 Bay in his cavern for ever, affrighting 
 
 the phantoms chill ; 
 130 
 
Hell's chaste mistress keep to her kins- 
 man's halls if she will. 
 
 Troy's ^neas, a son most loving, a 
 warrior brave, 
 
 Goes in the quest of his sire to the deep- 
 est gloom of the grave. 
 
 If thou art all unmoved at the sight of a 
 love so true " — 
 
 Here she displays him the bough in her 
 garment hidden from view — 
 
 " Know this branch." In his bosom 
 the tempest of anger abates. 
 
 Further he saith not. Feasting his eyes 
 on the wand of the Fates, 
 
 Mighty oblation, unseen for unnumbered 
 summers before, / 
 
 Charon advances his dark-blue bows, and 
 approaches the shore ; 
 
 Summons the rest of the spirits in row 
 on the benches who sate 
 
 Place to resign for the comers, his gang- 
 way clears, and on board 
 
 Takes iEneas. The cobbled boat groans 
 under his weight. 
 
 Water in streams from the marshes 
 through every fissure is poured. 
 
 131 
 
Priestess and hero safely across Death's 
 
 river are past, 
 Land upon mud unsightly, and pale 
 
 marsh-sedges, at last. 
 
 132 
 
THE REALMS OF THE DEAD 
 
 Here huge Cerberus bays with his triple 
 
 jaws through the land, 
 Croucht at enormous length in his cavern 
 
 facing the strand. 
 Soon as the Sibyl noted his hair now 
 
 bristling with snakes, 
 Morsels she flings him of meal, and of 
 
 honeyed opiate cakes. 
 Maddened with fury of famine his three 
 
 great throats unclose ; 
 Fiercely he snatches the viand, his mon- 
 strous limbs in repose 
 Loosens, and, prostrate laid, sprawls 
 
 measureless over his den. 
 133 
 
While the custodian sleeps, JEnc&s the 
 
 entrance takes, 
 Speeds from the bank of a stream no 
 
 traveller crosses again. 
 
 Voices they heard, and an infinite wail- 
 ing, as onward they bore, 
 
 Spirits of infants sobbing at Death's im- 
 mediate door. 
 
 Whom, at a mother's bosom, and stran- 
 gers to life's sweet breath. 
 
 Fate's dark day took from us, and 
 drowned in untimeliest death. 
 
 Near them are those who, falsely accused, 
 died guiltless, although 
 
 Not without trial, or verdict given, do 
 they enter below ; 
 
 Here, with his urn, sits Minos the judge, 
 convenes from within 
 
 Silent ghosts to the council, and learns 
 each life and its sin. 
 
 Near them inhabit the sorrowing souls, 
 whose innocent hands 
 
 Wrought on themselves their ruin, and 
 strewed their lives on the sands. 
 
 Hating the glorious sunlight. Alas ! 
 how willingly they 
 
 134 
 
Now would endure keen want, hard toil, 
 
 in the regions of day ! 
 Fate forbids it ; the loveless lake v/ith its 
 
 waters of woe 
 Holds them, and nine times round them 
 
 entwined, Styx bars them below. 
 
 Further faring, they see that beyond and 
 
 about them are spread 
 Fields of the Mourners, for so they are 
 
 called in worlds of the dead. 
 Here dwell those whom Love, with his 
 
 cruel sickness, hath slain. 
 Lost in secluded walks, amid myrtle 
 
 groves overhead. 
 Hiding they go, nor in death itself are 
 
 they eased of the pain. 
 Phaedra, and Procris, here, Eriphyle here 
 
 they behold. 
 Sadly displaying the wounds that her 
 
 wild son wrought her of old. 
 
 Yonder Pasiphae stood and Evadne ; close 
 
 to them clung 
 Laodamia, and Caenis, a man once, 
 
 woman at last, 
 
 135 
 
Now by the wheel of the Fates in her 
 former figure recast. 
 
 Fresh from her death-wound still, here 
 Dido, the others among. 
 
 Roamed in a spacious wood. Thro' 
 shadow the chieftain soon 
 
 Dimly discerned her face, as a man, 
 when the month is but young, 
 
 Sees, or believes he has seen, amid cloud- 
 less shining, the moon. 
 
 Tears in his eyes, he addressed her with 
 
 tender love as of old : 
 " True, then, sorrowful Dido, the mes- 
 senger fires that told 
 Thy sad death, and the doom thou 
 
 soughtest of choice by thy hand ! 
 Was it, alas ! to a grave that I did thee ? 
 
 Now by the bright 
 Stars, by the Gods, and the faith that 
 
 abides in realms of the Night, 
 'T was unwillingly, lady, I bade farewell 
 
 to thy land. 
 Yet, the behest of Immortals, — the 
 
 same which bids me to go 
 Thro' these shadows, the wilderness 
 
 mire and the darkness below, — 
 
 136 
 
Drove me imperious thence, nor possest 
 
 I power to believe 
 I at departing had left thee in grief thus 
 
 bitter to grieve. 
 Tarry, and turn not away from a face 
 
 that on thine would dwell ; 
 'T is thy lover thou fliest, and this is our 
 
 last farewell ! " 
 
 So, with a burning heart and with glower- 
 ing eyes as she went. 
 Melting vainly in tears, he essayed her 
 
 wrath to relent; 
 She with averted gaze upon earth her 
 
 countenance cast, 
 Nothing toucht in her look by her lover's 
 
 words to the last. 
 Set as a marble rock of Marpessus, cold 
 
 as a stone. 
 After a little she fled, in the forest hurried 
 
 to hide. 
 Ever his foe; Sychaeus, her first lord, 
 
 there at her side. 
 Answers sorrow with sorrow, and love 
 
 not less than her own. 
 
 137 
 
THE HEROES OF TROY 
 
 Thence on the path appointed they go, 
 
 and the uttermost plain 
 Reach ere long, where rest in seclusion 
 
 the glorious slain. 
 Tydeus here he discerns, here Partheno- 
 
 paeus of old 
 Famous in arms, and the ghost of 
 
 Adrastus, pallid and cold. 
 Wailed in the world of the sunlight long, 
 
 laid low in the fray, 
 
 138 
 
Here dwell Ilion's chiefs. As his eyes 
 
 on the gallant array 
 Lighted, he groaned. Three sons of 
 
 Antenor yonder they see, 
 Glaucus and Medon and young Thersi- 
 
 lochus, brethren three ; 
 Here Polyphaetes, servant of Heaven 
 
 from his earliest breath ; 
 There Idaeus, the shield and the reins 
 
 still holding in death. 
 Thickly about him gather the spectral 
 
 children of Troy : 
 'T is not enough to have seen him, to 
 
 linger round him is joy, 
 Pace at his side, and inquire why thus 
 
 he descends to the dead. 
 But the Achaean chiefs, Agamemnon's 
 
 legions arrayed. 
 When on the hero they looked, and his 
 
 armour gleaming in shade. 
 Shook with an infinite terror, and some 
 
 turned from him and fled. 
 As to the Danaan vessels in days gone 
 
 by they had sped. 
 Some on the air raise thinnest of voices ; 
 
 the shout of the fray 
 
 139 
 
Seems, upon lips wide-parted, begun, 
 then passing away. 
 
 Noble Deiphobus here he beholds, all 
 
 mangled and marred. 
 Son of the royal Priam ; — his visage 
 
 cruelly scarred. 
 Visage and hands ; from his ravaged 
 
 temples bloodily shorn 
 Each of his ears, and his nostrils with 
 
 wounds inglorious torn. 
 Hardly he knew him in sooth, for he 
 
 trembled, seeking to hide 
 These great wrongs; but at last in a 
 
 voice most loving he cried : 
 " Gallant Deiphobus, born of the Teu- 
 
 crian lineage bright. 
 Who had the heart to revenge him in 
 
 this dire fashion and dread ? 
 Who dared thus to abuse thee? On 
 
 Troy's last funeral night. 
 Weary of endless slaughter and Danaan 
 
 blood, it was said 
 Thou hadst laid thee to die on a heap of 
 
 the nameless dead. 
 Yea ! and a vacant mound upon far 
 
 Rhcetaeum's coast 
 140 
 
I there built thee, and thrice bade loud 
 
 farewell to thy ghost. 
 Hallowed the spot by thine armour and 
 
 name. Ere crossing the wave 
 Never, friend, could I find thee, nor 
 
 give thee an Ilian grave." 
 
 " Nothing was left undone, O friend ! ** 
 
 he replies ; " thou hast paid 
 All that Deiphobus claims, all debt that 
 
 was due to his shade. 
 'Twas my destiny sad, and the crime 
 
 accurst of the Greek 
 Woman, in woe that plunged me, and 
 
 wrote this tale on my cheek. 
 Well thou knowest — for ah ! too long 
 
 will the memory last — 
 How Troy's funeral night amid treach- 
 erous pleasures we past ; 
 When Fate's terrible steed overcame 
 
 our walls at a leap. 
 Carrying mailclad men in its womb 
 
 towards Pergama's steep ; 
 How, a procession feigning, the Phrygian 
 
 mothers she led 
 Round our city in orgy, with lighted 
 
 torch at their head 
 141 
 
Waving herself the Achaeans to Ilion*s 
 
 citadel keep. 
 I, that night, overburdened with troubles, 
 
 buried in sleep, 
 Lay in the fatal chamber, delicious 
 
 slumber and deep 
 Folding mine eyelids, like the unbroken 
 
 rest of the slain. 
 She, meanwhile, my glorious spouse, 
 
 from the palace has ta*en 
 Every weapon, and drawn from the 
 
 pillow the falchion I bore. 
 Then Menelaus summons, and straight- 
 way loosens the door. 
 Hoping in sooth that her lover with this 
 
 great boon might be won. 
 Deeming the fame of her guilt in the 
 
 past might so be undone. 
 Why on the memory linger ? The foe 
 
 streamed in at the gate 
 Led by Ulysses, the plotter. May judg- 
 ment. Immortals, wait 
 Yet on the Greeks, if of vengeance a 
 
 reverent heart may be fain ! 
 Tell me in turn what sorrow has brought 
 
 thee alive and unslain 
 
 142 
 
Hither ? " he cries ; " art come as a 
 
 mariner lost on the main. 
 Or by the counsel of Heaven ? What 
 
 fortune drives thee in quest, 
 Hither, of sunless places and sad, the 
 
 abodes of unrest ? " 
 Morn already with roseate steeds, while 
 
 talk they exchange. 
 Now in her journey has traversed the 
 
 half of the heavenly range. 
 And peradventure thus the allotted time 
 
 had been past. 
 Had not the faithful Sibyl rebuked him 
 
 briefly at last. 
 " Night draws nigh, ^neas. In tears 
 
 we are spending the hours. 
 Here is the place where the path is 
 
 divided. This to the right. 
 Under the walls of the terrible Dis — to 
 
 Elysium — ours. 
 Yonder, the left, brings doom to the 
 
 guilty, and drives them in flight 
 Down to the sinful region where awful 
 
 Tartarus lowers." 
 
 " Terrible priestess, frown not," Dcipho- 
 bus cries ; " I depart, 
 143 
 
Join our shadowy legion, restore me to 
 
 darkness anon. 
 Go, thou joy of the race ; may the Fates 
 
 vouchsafe thee a part 
 Brighter than mine ! " And behold, as 
 
 he uttered the word, he was gone. 
 
 Turning his eyes, JEnezs sees broad 
 
 battlements placed 
 Under the clifFs on his left, by a triple 
 
 rampart encased ; 
 Round them in torrents of ambient fire 
 
 runs Phlegethon swift. 
 River of Hell, and the thundering rocks 
 
 sends ever adrift. 
 One huge portal in front upon pillars of 
 
 adamant stands ; 
 Neither can mortal might, nor the heav- 
 ens' own warrior bands. 
 Rend it asunder. An iron tower rears 
 
 over the door, 
 Where Tisiphone seated in garments 
 
 dripping with gore 
 Watches the porch, unsleeping, by day 
 
 and by night evermore. 
 Hence come groans on the breezes, the 
 
 sound of a pitiless flail, 
 144 
 
Rattle of iron bands, and the clanking 
 of fetters that trail. 
 
 Silent the hero stands, and in terror 
 
 rivets his eyes. 
 " What dire shapes of impiety these ? 
 
 Speak, priestess ! " he cries. 
 "What dread torment racks them, and 
 
 what shrieks yonder arise ? " 
 She in return : " Great chief of the 
 
 Teucrian hosts, as is meet 
 Over the threshold of sinners may pass 
 
 no innocent feet. 
 Hecate's self, vi^ho set me to rule the 
 
 Avernian glade. 
 Taught me of Heaven's great torments, 
 
 and all their terrors displayed. 
 Here reigns dread Rhadamanthus, a king 
 
 no mercy that knows. 
 Chastens and judges the guilty, compels 
 
 each soul to disclose 
 Crimes of the upper air that he kept 
 
 concealed from the eye. 
 Proud of his idle cunning, till Death 
 
 brought punishment nigh. 
 Straightway then the Avenger Tisi phone 
 
 over them stands, 
 145 
 
Scourges the trembling sinners, her fierce 
 
 lash arming her hands ; 
 Holds in her left uplifted her serpents 
 
 grim, and from far 
 Summons the awful troop of her sisters 
 
 gathered for war ! 
 Then at the last with a grating of hide- 
 ous hinges unclose 
 Hell's infernal doors. Dost see what 
 
 warders are those 
 Crouched in the porch ? What presence 
 
 is yonder keeping the gate ? 
 Know that a Hydra beyond it, a foe still 
 
 fiercer in hate. 
 Lurks with a thousand ravening throats. 
 
 See ! Tartarus great 
 Yawning to utter abysses, and deepening 
 
 into the night. 
 Twice as profound as the space of the 
 
 starry Olympian height." 
 
THE HORRORS OF TARTARUS 
 
 " Here the enormous Titans, the Earth's 
 
 old progeny, hurled 
 Low by the hghtning, are under the 
 
 bottomless waters whirled. 
 Here I beheld thy children, Aloeus, 
 
 giants of might. 
 Brethren bold who endeavoured to pluck 
 
 down heaven from its height, 
 Fain to displace great Jove from his 
 
 throne in the kingdom of light. 
 147 
 
Saw Salmoneus too, overtaken with 
 
 agony dire 
 While the Olympian thunder he mim- 
 icked and Jove's own fire. 
 Borne on his four-horsed chariot, and 
 
 waving torches that glowed, 
 Over the Danaan land, thro* the city 
 
 of Elis, he rode. 
 Marching in triumph, and claiming the 
 
 honours due to a god. 
 Madman, thinking with trumpets and 
 
 tramp of the steeds that he drove 
 He might rival the storms, and the 
 
 matchless thunders of Jove ! 
 But the omnipotent Father a bolt from 
 
 his cloudy abyss 
 Launched — no brand from the pine, no 
 
 smoke of the torchlight this — 
 And with an awful whirlwind blast 
 
 hurled Pride to its fall. 
 Tityos also, the nurseling of Earth, great 
 
 mother of all. 
 Here was to see, whose body a long 
 
 league covers of plain ; 
 One huge vulture, standing with hooked 
 
 beak at his side, 
 
 148 
 
Shears his liver that dies not, his bowel 
 
 fruitful of pain. 
 Searches his heart for a banquet, beneath 
 
 his breast doth abide, 
 Grants no peace to the vitals that ever 
 
 renew them again. 
 
 "Why of Pirithous tell, and Ixion, 
 
 Lapithae tall. 
 O'er whose brows is suspended a dark 
 
 crag, ready to fall. 
 Ever in act to descend ? Proud couches 
 
 raised upon bright 
 Golden feet are shining, a festal table in 
 
 sight 
 Laden with royal splendour. The Furies* 
 
 Queen on her throne 
 Sits at the banquet by — forbids them to 
 
 taste it — has flown 
 Now to prevent them with torch uplifted, 
 
 and thundering tone. 
 
 " All who have hated a brother in lifetime, 
 
 all who have laid 
 Violent hands on a parent, the faith of a 
 
 client betrayed ; 
 
 149 
 
Those who finding a treasure have o'er 
 
 it brooded alone, 
 Setting aside no portion for kinsmen, a 
 
 numerous band ; 
 Those in adultery slain, all those who 
 
 have raised in the land 
 Treason's banner, or broken their oath 
 
 to a master's hand. 
 Prisoned within are awaiting an awful 
 
 doom of their own. 
 
 " Ask me not, what their doom, — what 
 
 form of requital or ill 
 Whelms them below. Some roll huge 
 
 stones to the crest of the hill. 
 Some on the spokes of a whirling wheel 
 
 hang spread to the wind. 
 Theseus sits, the unblest, and will ever 
 
 seated remain; 
 Phlegyas here in his torments a warning 
 
 voice to mankind 
 Raises, loudly proclaiming throughout 
 
 Hell's gloomy abodes : 
 ' Learn hereby to be just, and to think 
 
 no scorn of the Gods ! ' 
 This is the sinner his country who sold, 
 
 forged tyranny's chain, 
 150 
 
Made for a bribe her laws, for a bribe 
 unmade them again. 
 
 Yon wretch dared on a daughter with 
 eyes unholy to look. 
 
 All some infamy ventured, of infamy's 
 gains partook. 
 
 Had I a thousand tongues, and a thou- 
 sand lips, and a speech 
 
 Fashioned of steel, sin's varying types I 
 hardly could teach. 
 
 Could not read thee the roll of the 
 torments suffered of each ! " 
 
 Soon as the aged seer of Apollo her story 
 
 had done, 
 " Forward," she cries, " on the path, and 
 
 complete thy mission begun. 
 Hasten the march ! I behold in the dis- 
 tance battlements great. 
 Built by the Cyclops' forge, and the 
 
 vaulted dome at the gate 
 Where the divine revelation ordains our 
 
 gifts to be laid." 
 Side by side at her bidding they traverse 
 
 the region of shade. 
 Over the distance hasten, and now draw 
 
 nigh to the doors. 
 
Fronting the gates ^Eneas stands, fresh 
 
 water he pours 
 Over his limbs, and the branch on the 
 
 portal hangs as she bade. 
 
 152 
 
THE REALMS OF THE BLEST 
 
 After the rite is completed, the gift to 
 
 the goddess addrest, 
 Now at the last they come to the realms 
 
 where Joy has her throne ; 
 Sweet green glades in the Fortunate 
 
 Forests, abodes of the blest. 
 Fields in an ampler ether, a light more 
 
 glorious drest. 
 Lit evermore with their own bright stars 
 
 and a sun of their own. 
 153 
 
Some are training their limbs on the 
 
 wrestling-green, and compete 
 Gaily in sport on the yellow arenas, some 
 
 with their feet 
 Treading their choral measures, or sing- 
 ing the hymns of the god j 
 While their Thracian priest, in a sacred 
 
 robe that trails. 
 Chants them the air with the seven 
 
 sweet notes of his musical scales, 
 Now with his fingers striking, and now 
 
 with his ivory rod. 
 Here are the ancient children of Teucer, 
 
 fair to behold. 
 Generous heroes, born in the happier 
 
 summers of old, — 
 Uus, Assaracus by him, and Dardan, 
 
 founder of Troy. 
 Far in the distance yonder are visible 
 
 armour and car 
 Unsubstantial, in earth their lances are 
 
 planted, and far 
 Over the meadows are ranging the 
 
 charges freed from employ. 
 All the delight they took when alive in 
 
 the chariot and sword, 
 
 154 
 
All of the loving care that to shining 
 
 coursers was paid, 
 Follows them now that in quiet below 
 
 Earth's breast they are laid. 
 Banqueting here he beholds them to 
 
 right and to left on the sward, 
 Chanting in chorus the Paean, beneath 
 
 sweet forests of bay, 
 Whence, amid wild wood covers, the 
 
 river Eridanus, poured. 
 Rolls his majestic torrents to upper earth 
 
 and the day. 
 Chiefs for the land of their sires in the 
 
 battle wounded of yore. 
 Priests whose purity lasted until sweet 
 
 life was no more. 
 Faithful prophets who spake as beseemed 
 
 their god and his shrine. 
 All who by arts invented to life have 
 
 added a grace. 
 All whose services earned the remem- 
 brance deep of the race. 
 Round their shadowy foreheads the 
 
 snow-white garland entwine. 
 
 Then, as about them the phantoms 
 
 stream, breaks silence the seer, 
 
 155 
 
Turning first to Musseus, — for round 
 
 him the shadows appear 
 Thickest to crowd, as he towers with 
 
 his shoulders over the throng — 
 " Tell me, ye joyous spirits, and thou, 
 
 bright master of song. 
 Where is the home and the haunt of the 
 
 great Anchises, for whom 
 Hither we come, and have traverst the 
 
 awful rivers of gloom ? " 
 Briefly in turn makes answer the hero : 
 
 " None has a home 
 In fixt haunts. We inhabit the dark 
 
 thick glades, on the brink 
 Ever of moss-banked rivers, and water 
 
 meadows that drink 
 Living streams. But if onward your 
 
 heart thus wills ye to go. 
 Climb this ridge. I will set you in 
 
 pathways easy to know." 
 Forward he marches, leading the way ; 
 
 from the heights at the end 
 Shows them a shining plain, and the 
 
 mountain slopes they descend. 
 
 There withdrawn to a valley of green in 
 a fold of the plain 
 
 156 
 
Stood Anchises the father, his eyes 
 
 intent on a train — 
 Prisoned spirits, soon to ascend to the 
 
 sunlight again ; — 
 Numbering over his children dear, their 
 
 myriad bands, 
 All their destinies bright, their ways, and 
 
 the work of their hands. 
 When he beheld ^neas across these 
 
 flowery lands 
 Moving to meet him, fondly he strained 
 
 both arms to his boy. 
 Tears on his cheek fell fast, and his 
 
 voice found slowly employ. 
 
 " Here thou comest at last, and the love 
 
 I counted upon 
 Over the rugged path has prevailed. 
 
 Once more, O my son, 
 I may behold thee, and answer with 
 
 mine thy voice as of yore. 
 Long I pondered the chances, believed 
 
 this day was in store. 
 Reckoning the years and the seasons. 
 
 Nor was my longing belied. 
 O'er how many a land, past what far 
 
 waters and wide, 
 157 
 
Hast thou come to mine arms ! What 
 dangers have tost thee, my child ! 
 
 Ah ! how I feared lest harm should 
 await thee in Libya wild ! " 
 
 "Thine own shade, my sire, thine own 
 
 disconsolate shade, 
 Visiting oft my chamber, has made me 
 
 seek thee," he said. 
 " Safe upon Tuscan waters the fleet lies. 
 
 Grant me to grasp 
 Thy right hand, sweet father, withdraw 
 
 thee not from its clasp." 
 
 So he replied ; and a river of tears flowed 
 
 over his face. 
 Thrice with his arms he essayed the 
 
 beloved one's neck to embrace ; 
 Thrice claspt vainly, the phantom eluded 
 
 his hands in flight. 
 Thin as the idle breezes, and like some 
 
 dream of the night. 
 
 There ^Eneas beholds in a valley with- 
 drawn from the rest 
 
 Far-ofF glades, and a forest of boughs 
 that sing in the breeze ; 
 
 158 
 
Near them the Lethe river that glides 
 
 by abodes of the blest. 
 Round it numberless races and people 
 
 floating he sees. 
 So on the flowery meadows in calm, 
 
 clear, summer, the bees 
 Settle on bright-hued blossoms, or stream 
 
 in companies round 
 Fair white lilies, till every plain seems 
 
 ringing with sound. 
 
 Strange to the scene iEneas, with terror 
 
 suddenly pale. 
 Asks of its meaning, and what be the 
 
 streams in the distant vale. 
 Who those warrior crowds that about 
 
 yon river await. 
 Answer returns Anchises : " The spirits 
 
 promist by Fate 
 Life in the body again. Upon Lethe's 
 
 watery brink 
 These of the fountain of rest and of 
 
 long oblivion drink. 
 Ever I yearn to relate thee the tale, 
 
 display to thine eyes, 
 Count thee over the children that from 
 
 my loins shall arise, 
 159 
 
So that our joy may be deeper on find- 
 ing Italy's skies." 
 
 " O my father ! and are there, and must 
 we believe it," he said, 
 
 " Spirits that fly once more to the sun- 
 light back from the dead ? 
 
 Souls that anew to the body return and 
 the fetters of clay ? 
 
 Can there be any who long for the light 
 thus blindly as they ? " 
 
 " Listen, and I will resolve thee the 
 
 doubt," Anchises replies. 
 Then unfolds him in order the tale of 
 
 the earth and the skies. 
 
 "In the beginning, the earth, and the 
 
 sky, and the spaces of night. 
 Also the shining moon, and the sun 
 
 Titanic and bright 
 Feed on an inward life, and with all 
 
 things mingled, a mind 
 Moves universal matter, with Nature's 
 
 frame is combined. 
 Thence man's race, and the beast, and 
 
 the bird that on pinions flies, 
 1 60 
 
All wild shapes that are hidden the 
 gleaming waters beneath. 
 
 Each elemental seed has a fiery force 
 from the skies, 
 
 Each, its heavenly being, that no dull 
 clay can disguise. 
 
 Bodies of earth ne'er deaden, nor limbs 
 long destined to death. 
 
 Hence, their fears and desires j their sor- 
 rows and joys ; for their sight. 
 
 Blind with the gloom of a prison, dis- 
 cerns not the heavenly light. 
 
 " Nor when at last life leaves them, do 
 
 all sad ills, that belong 
 Unto the sinful body, depart j still many 
 
 survive 
 Lingering within them, alas ! for it needs 
 
 must be that the long 
 Growth should in wondrous fashion at 
 
 full completion arrive. 
 So, due vengeance racks them, for deeds 
 
 of an earlier day 
 Suffering penance, and some to the winds 
 
 hang viewless and thin 
 Searcht by the breezes ; from others, the 
 
 deep infection of sin 
 i6i 
 
Swirling water washes, or bright fire 
 
 purges, away. 
 Each in his own sad ghost we endure; 
 
 then pass to the wide 
 Realms of Elysium. Few in the fields 
 
 of the happy abide, 
 Till great Time, when the cycles have 
 
 run their courses on high. 
 Takes the inbred pollution, and leaves to 
 
 us only the bright 
 Sense of the heaven's own ether, and fire 
 
 from the springs of the sky. 
 When for a thousand years they have 
 
 rolled their wheels thro* the night, 
 God to the Lethe river recalls this myriad 
 
 train. 
 That with remembrance lost once more 
 
 they may visit the light. 
 And, at the last, have desire for a life in 
 
 the body again." 
 
 When he had ended, his son and the 
 
 Sibyl maiden he drew 
 Into the vast assembly — the crowd with 
 
 its endless hum ; 
 
 162 
 
There on a hillock plants them, that 
 hence they better may view 
 
 All the procession advancing, and learn 
 their looks as they come. 
 
 163 
 

 ^^m*^J^eSf*^^^KI^M 
 
 
 ^K4^Jb^M 
 
 1 
 
 
 flj h 
 
 1 B 
 
 11 
 
 
 ^n 
 
 
 1 
 
 THE ROMAN HEROES 
 
 " What bright fame hereafter the Trojan 
 
 line shall adorn, 
 What far children be theirs, from the 
 
 blood of Italians born. 
 Splendid souls, that inherit the name and 
 
 the glory of Troy, 
 Now will I tell thee, and teach thee the 
 
 fates thy race shall enjoy. 
 Yon fair hero who leans on a lance 
 
 unpointed and bright, 
 164 
 
Granted the earliest place in the world 
 
 of the day and the light, 
 Half of Italian birth, from the shadows 
 
 first shall ascend, 
 Silvius, Alban of name, thy child tho' 
 
 born at the end. 
 Son of thy later years by Lavinia, consort 
 
 of thine. 
 Reared in the woods as a monarch and 
 
 sire of a royal line. 
 Next to him Procas, the pride of the 
 
 race ; then Capys, and far 
 Numitor; after him one who again thy 
 
 name shall revive, 
 Silvius, hight ^neas, in pious service 
 
 and war 
 Noble alike, if to Alba's throne he shall 
 
 ever arrive. 
 Heroes fair ! how grandly, behold ! their 
 
 manhood is shown. 
 While their brows are shaded by leaves 
 
 of the citizen-crown ! 
 These on the mountain ranges shall set 
 
 Nomentum the steep, 
 Gabii's towers, Fidenae's town, Collatia's 
 
 keep; 
 
 165 
 
Here plant Inuus' camp, there Cora and 
 
 Bola enthrone, 
 Glorious names ere long, now a nameless 
 
 land and unknown. 
 Romulus, scion of Mars, at the side of 
 
 his grandsire see — 
 Ilia fair his mother, the blood of Assa- 
 
 racus he ! 
 See on his helmet the doubled crest, 
 
 how his sire has begun 
 Marking the boy with his own bright 
 
 plumes for the world of the sun. 
 Under his auspices Rome, our glorious 
 
 Rome, shall arise. 
 Earth with her empire ruling, her great 
 
 soul touching the skies. 
 Lo ! seven mountains enwalling, a single 
 
 city, she lies. 
 Blest in her warrior brood ! So crowned 
 
 with towers ye have seen 
 Ride thro' Phrygians cities the great 
 
 Berecynthian queen. 
 Proud of the gods her children, a hundred 
 
 sons at her knee. 
 All of them mighty immortals, and lords 
 
 of a heavenly fee ! 
 
 l66 
 
Turn thy glance now hither, behold this 
 
 glorious clan, 
 Romans of thine. See Caesar, and each 
 
 generation of man 
 Yet to be born of lulus beneath heaven's 
 
 infinite dome. 
 Yonder behold thy hero, the promised 
 
 prince, upon whom 
 Often thy hopes have dwelt, Augustus 
 
 Caesar, by birth 
 Kin to the godlike dead, who a golden 
 
 age upon earth 
 Comes to renew where once o'er Latium 
 
 Saturn reigned. 
 Holding remote Garamantes and India's 
 
 tribes enchained. 
 Far beyond all our planets the land lies, 
 
 far beyond high 
 Heaven, and the sun's own orbit, where 
 
 Atlas, lifting the sky. 
 Whirls on his shoulders the sphere, 
 
 inwrought with its fiery suns ! 
 Ere his arrival, lo ! thro' shivering Caspia 
 
 runs 
 Fear, at her oracle's answers. The 
 
 vast Maeotian plain, 
 
 167 
 
Sevenfold Nile and his mouths, are flut- 
 tered and tremble again ; 
 
 Ranges of earth more wide than Alcides 
 ever surveyed, 
 
 Tho' he pursued deer brazen of limb, 
 tamed Erymanth's glade, 
 
 Lerna with arrows scared, or the Vine- 
 god, when from the war 
 
 Homeward with ivied reins he conducts 
 his conquering car. 
 
 Driving his team of tigers from Nysa's 
 summits afar. — 
 
 Art thou loth any longer with deeds our 
 sway to expand? 
 
 Can it be fear forbids thee to hold 
 Ausonia's land ? 
 
 '' Who comes yonder the while with the 
 
 olive branch on his brow. 
 Bearing the sacred vessels ? I know yon 
 
 tresses, I know 
 Yon gray beard, Rome's monarch, the 
 
 first with law to sustain 
 Rome yet young ; from the lordship of 
 
 Cures' little domain 
 Sent to an empire's throne. At his side 
 
 goes one who shall break 
 i68 
 
Slumberous peace, to the battle her ease- 
 ful warriors wake, 
 Rouse once more her battalions disused 
 
 to the triumph so long, 
 Tullus the king ! Next, Ancus the 
 
 boastful marches along. 
 See, overjoyed already by praises breathed 
 
 from a crowd ! 
 Yonder the royal Tarquins are visible ; 
 
 yonder the proud 
 Soul of avenging Brutus, with Rome's 
 
 great fasces again 
 Made Rome's own ; who first to her 
 
 consul's throne shall attain. 
 Hold her terrible axes ; his sons, the 
 
 rebellious pair. 
 Doom to a rebel's death for the sake of 
 
 Liberty fair. 
 Ill-starred sire ! let the ages relate as 
 
 please them the tale. 
 Yet shall his patriot passion and thirst 
 
 of glory prevail. 
 Look on the Decii there, and the Drusi ; 
 
 hatchet in hand 
 See Torquatus the stern, and Camillus 
 
 home to his land 
 
 169 
 
Marching with rescued banners. But 
 yonder spirits who stand 
 
 Drest in the shining armour alike, har- 
 monious now 
 
 While in the world of shadows with 
 dark night over their brow — 
 
 Ah ! what battles the twain must wage, 
 what legions array. 
 
 What fell carnage kindle, if e*er they 
 reach to the day ! 
 
 Father descending from Alpine snows 
 and Moncecus*s height. 
 
 Husband ranging against him an Eastern 
 host for the fight ! 
 
 Teach not your hearts, my children, to 
 learn these lessons of strife j 
 
 Turn not a country's valour against her 
 veriest life. 
 
 Thou be the first to forgive, great child 
 of a heavenly birth. 
 
 Fling down, son of my loins, thy weap- 
 ons and sword to the earth ! 
 
 " See, who rides from a vanquisht Corinth 
 
 in conqueror's car 
 Home to the Capitol, deckt with Achaean 
 
 spoils from the war 
 170 
 
Argos and proud Mycenae a second 
 
 comes to dethrone, 
 Ay, and the iEacus-born, whose race of 
 
 Achilles is sown, 
 Venging his Trojan sires and Minerva's 
 
 outraged fane ! 
 Who would leave thee, Cato, untold ? 
 
 thee, Cossus, unknown ? 
 Gracchus*s clan, or the Scipio pair, war's 
 
 thunderbolts twain, 
 Libya's ruin ; — forget Fabricius, prince 
 
 in his need; 
 Pass unsung Serranus, his furrows sow- 
 ing with seed ? 
 Give me but breath, ye Fabians, to 
 
 follow ! Yonder the great 
 Fabius thou, whose timely delays gave 
 
 strength to the state. 
 Others will mould their bronzes to 
 
 breathe with a tenderer grace. 
 Draw, I doubt not, from marble a vivid 
 
 life to the face. 
 Plead at the bar more deftly, with sapi- 
 ent wands of the wise 
 Trace heaven's courses and changes, 
 
 predict us stars to arise. 
 
 171 
 
Thine, O Roman, remember, to reign 
 
 over every race ! 
 These be thine arts, thy glories, the ways 
 
 of peace to proclaim, 
 Mercy to show to the fallen, the proud 
 
 with battle to tame ! " 
 
 Thus Anchises, and then — as they mar- 
 velled — further anon : 
 " Lo, where deckt in a conqueror's spoils 
 
 Marcellus, my son. 
 Strides from the war ! How he towers 
 
 o'er all of the warrior train ! 
 When Rome reels with the shock of the 
 
 wild invaders' alarm. 
 He shall sustain her state. From his 
 
 war-steed's saddle, his arm 
 Carthage and rebel Gaul shall destroy, 
 
 and the arms of the slain 
 Victor a third time hang in his father 
 
 Quirinus' fane." 
 
 Then ^neas, — for near him a youth 
 
 seemed ever to pace. 
 Fair, of an aspect princely, with armour 
 
 of glittering grace, 
 
 172 
 
Yet was his forehead joyless, his eye cast 
 
 down as in grief — 
 " Who can it be, my father, that walks 
 
 at the side of the chief? 
 Is it his son, or perchance some child 
 
 of his glorious race 
 Born from remote generations ? And 
 
 hark, how ringing a cheer 
 Breaks from his comrades round ! What 
 
 a noble presence is here ! 
 Tho* dark night with her shadow of woe 
 
 floats over his face ! " 
 
 Answer again Anchises began with a 
 gathering tear : 
 
 " Ask me not, O my son, of thy chil- 
 dren's infinite pain ! 
 
 Fate one glimpse of the boy to the 
 world will grant, and again 
 
 Take him from life. Too puissant 
 methinks to immortals on high 
 
 Rome's great children had seemed, if a 
 gift like this from the sky 
 
 Longer had been vouchsafed ! What 
 wailing of warriors bold 
 
 Shall from the funeral plain to the War- 
 god's city be rolled ! 
 173 
 
What sad pomp thine eyes will discern, 
 
 what pageant of woe, 
 When by his new-made tomb thy waters, 
 
 Tiber, shall flow ! 
 Never again such hopes shall a youth of 
 
 thy lineage, Troy ! 
 Rouse in his great forefathers of Latium ! 
 
 Never a boy 
 Nobler pride shall inspire in the ancient 
 
 Romulus land ! 
 Ah, for his filial love ! for his old-world 
 
 faith ! for his hand 
 Matchless in battle ! Unharmed what 
 
 foeman had oflTered to stand 
 Forth in his path, when charging on foot 
 
 for the enemy's ranks, 
 Or when plunging the spur in his foam- 
 flecked courser's flanks ! 
 Child of a nation's sorrow ! if thou 
 
 canst baffle the Fates' 
 Bitter decrees, and break for a while 
 
 their barrier gates. 
 Thine to become Marcellus ! I pray 
 
 thee, bring me anon 
 Handfuls of lilies, that I bright flowers 
 
 may strew on my son, 
 
 174 
 
Heap on the shade of the boy unborn 
 
 these gifts at the least, 
 Doing the dead, tho' vainly, the last sad 
 
 service." — He ceast. 
 
 So from region to region they roam with 
 
 curious eyes. 
 Traverse the spacious plains where shad- 
 owy darkness lies. 
 One by one Anchises unfolds each scene 
 
 to his son. 
 Kindling his soul with a passion for 
 
 glories yet to be won ; 
 Speaks of the wars that await him 
 
 beneath the Italian skies. 
 Rude Laurentian clans and the haughty 
 
 Latinus's walls. 
 How to avoid each peril, or bear its 
 
 brunt, as befalls. 
 
 Sleep has his portals twain ; one fashioned 
 of horn, it is said. 
 
 Whence come true apparitions by exit 
 smooth from the dead ; 
 
 One with the polisht splendour of shin- 
 ing ivory bright. 
 
 175 
 
False are the only visions that issue 
 
 thence from the night. 
 Thither Anchises leads them, exchanging 
 
 talk by the way, 
 There speeds Sibyl and son by the ivory 
 
 gate to the day. 
 Straight to his vessels and mates iEneas 
 
 journeyed, and bore 
 Thence for Caieta's harbour along the 
 
 Italian shore. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 176 
 
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