Aeneid

and on Creusa piteously calling,

woke the lamenting echoes o'er and o'er.

While on this quest I roamed the city through,

of reason reft there rose upon my sight—

O shape of sorrow!— my Creusa's ghost,

hers truly, though a loftier port it wore.

I quailed, my hair rose, and I gasped for fear;

but thus she spoke, and soothed my grief away:

“Why to these frenzied sorrows bend thy soul,

O husband ever dear! The will of Heaven

hath brought all this to pass. Fate doth not send

Creusa the long journeys thou shalt take,

or hath th' Olympian King so given decree.

Long is thy banishment; thy ship must plough

the vast, far-spreading sea. Then shalt thou come

unto Hesperia, whose fruitful plains

are watered by the Tiber, Lydian stream,

of smooth, benignant Bow. Thou shalt obtain

fair fortunes, and a throne and royal bride.

For thy beloved Creusa weep no more!

No Myrmidon's proud palace waits me now;

Dolopian shall not scorn, nor Argive dames

command a slave of Dardan's royal stem

and wife to Venus' son. On these loved shores

the Mother of the Gods compels my stay.

Farewell! farewell! O, cherish evermore

thy son and mine!” Her utterance scarce had ceased,

when, as I strove through tears to make reply,

she left me, and dissolved in empty air.

Thrice would my frustrate arms her form enfold;

thrice from the clasp of hand that vision fled,

like wafted winds and like a fleeting dream.

The night had passed, and to my friends once more

I made my way, much wondering to find

a mighty multitude assembled there

of friends new-come,—matrons and men-at-arms,

and youth for exile bound,— a doleful throng.

From far and near they drew, their hearts prepared

and their possessions gathered, to sail forth

to lands unknown, wherever o'er the wave

I bade them follow. Now above the crest

of loftiest Ida rose the morning-star,

chief in the front of day. The Greeks held fast

the captive gates of Troy. No help or hope

was ours any more. Then, yielding all,

and lifting once again my aged sire,

for refuge to the distant hills I fled.

When Asia's power and Priam's race and throne,

though guiltless, were cast down by Heaven's decree,

when Ilium proud had fallen, and Neptune's Troy

in smouldering ash lay level with the ground,

to wandering exile then and regions wild

the gods by many an augury and sign

compelled us forth. We fashioned us a fleet

within Antander's haven, in the shade

of Phrygian Ida's peak (though knowing not

whither our fate would drive, or where afford

a resting-place at last), and my small band

of warriors I arrayed. As soon as smiled

the light of summer's prime, my reverend sire

Anchises bade us on the winds of Fate

to spread all sail. Through tears I saw recede

my native shore, the haven and the plains

where once was Troy. An exile on the seas,

with son and followers and household shrines,

and Troy's great guardian-gods, I took my way.

There is a far-off land where warriors breed,

where Thracians till the boundless plains, and where

the cruel-eyed Lycurgus once was king.

Troy's old ally it was, its deities

had brotherhood with ours before our fall.

Thither I fared, and on its winding shores

set my first walls, though partial Fate opposed

our entrance there. In memory of my name

I called its people the Aeneadae.

Unto Dione's daughter, and all gods

who blessed our young emprise, due gifts were paid;

and unto the supreme celestial King

I slew a fair white bull beside the sea.

But haply near my place of sacrifice

a mound was seen, and on the summit grew

a copse of corner and a myrtle tree,

with spear-like limbs outbranched on every side.

This I approached, and tried to rend away

from its deep roots that grove of gloomy green,

and dress my altars in its leafy boughs.

But, horrible to tell, a prodigy

smote my astonished eyes: for the first tree,

which from the earth with broken roots I drew,

dripped black with bloody drops, and gave the ground

dark stains of gore. Cold horror shook my frame,

and every vein within me froze for fear.

Once more I tried from yet another stock

the pliant stem to tear, and to explore

the mystery within,—but yet again

the foul bark oozed with clots of blackest gore!

From my deep-shaken soul I made a prayer

to all the woodland nymphs and to divine

Gradivus, patron of the Thracian plain,

to bless this sight, to lift its curse away.