Part 7

So when, overcome by her pangs, she caught the madness and resolved to die, she works out secretly the time and fashion, and accosts her sorrowing sister with mien hiding her design and hope calm on her brow.

'I have found a way, mine own--wish me joy, sisterlike--to restore him to me or release me of my love for him. Hard by the ocean limit and the set of sun is the extreme Aethiopian land, where ancient Atlas turns on his shoulders the starred burning axletree of heaven. Out of it hath been shown to me a priestess of Massylian race, warder of the temple of the Hesperides, even she who gave the dragon his food, and kept the holy boughs on the tree, sprinkling clammy honey and slumberous poppy-seed. She professes with her spells to relax the purposes of whom she will, but on others to bring passion and pain; to stay the river-waters and turn the stars backward: she calls up ghosts by night; thou shalt see earth moaning under foot and mountain-ashes descending from the hills. I take heaven, sweet, to witness, and thee, mine own darling sister, I do not willingly arm myself with the arts of magic. Do thou secretly raise a pyre in the inner court, and let them lay on it the arms that the accursed one left hanging in our chamber, and all the dress he wore, and the bridal bed where I fell. It is good to wipe out all the wretch's traces, and the priestess orders thus.' So speaks she, and is silent, while pallor overruns her face. Yet Anna deems not her sister veils death behind these strange rites, and grasps not her wild purpose, nor fears aught deeper than at Sychaeus' death. So she makes ready as bidden. . . .

Night fell; weary creatures took quiet slumber all over earth, and woodland and wild waters had sunk to rest; now the stars wheel midway on their gliding path, now all the country is silent, and beasts and gay birds that haunt liquid levels of lake or thorny rustic thicket lay couched asleep under the still night. But not so the distressed Phoenician, nor does she ever sink asleep or take the night upon eyes or breast; her pain redoubles, and her love swells to renewed madness, as she tosses on the strong tide of wrath. Even so she begins, and thus revolves with her heart alone:

'See, what do I? Shall I again make trial of mine old wooers that will scorn me? and stoop to sue for a Numidian marriage among those whom already over and over I have disdained for husbands? Then shall I follow the Ilian fleets and the uttermost bidding of the Teucrians? because it is good to think they were once raised up by my [539-570]succour, or the grace of mine old kindness is fresh in their remembrance? And how should they let me, if I would? or take the odious woman on their haughty ships? art thou ignorant, ah me, even in ruin, and knowest not yet the forsworn race of Laomedon? And then? shall I accompany the triumphant sailors, a lonely fugitive? or plunge forth girt with all my Tyrian train? so hardly severed from Sidon city, shall I again drive them seaward, and bid them spread their sails to the tempest? Nay die thou, as thou deservest, and let the steel end thy pain. With thee it began; overborne by my tears, thou, O my sister, dost load me with this madness and agony, and layest me open to the enemy. I could not spend a wild life without stain, far from a bridal chamber, and free from touch of distress like this! O faith ill kept, that was plighted to Sychaeus' ashes!' Thus her heart broke in long lamentation.

Now Aeneas was fixed to go, and now, with all set duly in order, was taking hasty sleep on his high stern. To him as he slept the god appeared once again in the same fashion of countenance, and thus seemed to renew his warning, in all points like to Mercury, voice and hue and golden hair and limbs gracious in youth. 'Goddess-born, canst thou sleep on in such danger? and seest not the coming perils that hem thee in, madman! nor hearest the breezes blowing fair? She, fixed on death, is revolving craft and crime grimly in her bosom, and swells the changing surge of wrath. Fliest thou not hence headlong, while headlong flight is yet possible? Even now wilt thou see ocean weltering with broken timbers, see the fierce glare of torches and the beach in a riot of flame, if dawn break on thee yet dallying in this land. Up ho! linger no more! Woman is ever a fickle and changing thing.' So spoke he, and melted in the black night.

And now Dawn broke, and, leaving the saffron bed of Tithonus, shed her radiance anew over the world; when the Queen saw from her watch-tower the first light whitening, and the fleet standing out under squared sail, and discerned shore and haven empty of all their oarsmen. Thrice and four times she struck her hand on her lovely breast and rent her yellow hair: 'God!' she cries, 'shall he go? shall an alien make mock of our realm? Will they not issue in armed pursuit from all the city, and some launch ships from the dockyards? Go; bring fire in haste, serve weapons, swing out the oars! What do I talk? or where am I? what mad change is on my purpose? Alas, Dido! now thou dost feel thy wickedness; that had graced thee once, when thou gavest away thy crown. Behold the faith and hand of him! who, they say, carries his household's ancestral gods about with him! who stooped his shoulders to a father outworn with age! Could I not have riven his body in sunder and strewn it on the waves? and slain with the sword his comrades and his dear Ascanius, and served him for the banquet at his father's table? But the chance of battle had been dubious. If it had! whom did I fear [604-635]with my death upon me? I should have borne firebrands into his camp and filled his decks with flame, blotted out father and son and race together, and flung myself atop of all. Sun, whose fires lighten all the works of the world, and thou, Juno, mediatress and witness of these my distresses, and Hecate, cried on by night in crossways of cities, and you, fatal avenging sisters and gods of dying Elissa, hear me now; bend your just deity to my woes, and listen to our prayers. If it must needs be that the accursed one touch his haven and float up to land, if thus Jove's decrees demand, and this is the appointed term,--yet, distressed in war by an armed and gallant nation, driven homeless from his borders, rent from Iülus' embrace, let him sue for succour and see death on death untimely on his people; nor when he hath yielded him to the terms of a harsh peace, may he have joy of his kingdom or the pleasant light; but let him fall before his day and without burial on a waste of sand. This I pray; this and my blood with it I pour for the last utterance. And you, O Tyrians, hunt his seed with your hatred for all ages to come; send this guerdon to our ashes. Let no kindness nor truce be between the nations. Arise out of our dust, O unnamed avenger, to pursue the Dardanian settlement with firebrand and steel. Now, then, whensoever strength shall be given, I invoke the enmity of shore to shore, wave to water, sword to sword; let their battles go down to their children's children.'

So speaks she as she kept turning her mind round about, seeking how soonest to break away from the hateful light. Thereon she speaks briefly to Barce, nurse of Sychaeus; for a heap of dusky ashes held her own, in her country of long ago:

'Sweet nurse, bring Anna my sister hither to me. Bid her haste and sprinkle river water over her body, and bring [636-667]with her the beasts ordained for expiation: so let her come: and thou likewise veil thy brows with a pure chaplet. I would fulfil the rites of Stygian Jove that I have fitly ordered and begun, so to set the limit to my distresses and give over to the flames the funeral pyre of the Dardanian.'

So speaks she; the old woman went eagerly with quickened pace. But Dido, fluttered and fierce in her awful purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze, and spots on her quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of imminent death, bursts into the inner courts of the house, and mounts in madness the high funeral pyre, and unsheathes the sword of Dardania, a gift asked for no use like this. Then after her eyes fell on the Ilian raiment and the bed she knew, dallying a little with her purpose through her tears, she sank on the pillow and spoke the last words of all:

'Dress he wore, sweet while doom and deity allowed! receive my spirit now, and release me from my distresses. I have lived and fulfilled Fortune's allotted course; and now shall I go a queenly phantom under the earth. I have built a renowned city; I have seen my ramparts rise; by my brother's punishment I have avenged my husband of his enemy; happy, ah me! and over happy, had but the keels of Dardania never touched our shores!' She spoke; and burying her face in the pillow, 'Death it will be,' she cries, 'and unavenged; but death be it. Thus, thus is it good to pass into the dark. Let the pitiless Dardanian's gaze drink in this fire out at sea, and my death be the omen he carries on his way.'

She ceased; and even as she spoke her people see her sunk on the steel, and blood reeking on the sword and spattered on her hands. A cry rises in the high halls; Rumour riots down the quaking city. The house resounds with lamentation and sobbing and bitter crying of women; [668-700]heaven echoes their loud wails; even as though all Carthage or ancient Tyre went down as the foe poured in, and the flames rolled furious over the roofs of house and temple. Swooning at the sound, her sister runs in a flutter of dismay, with torn face and smitten bosom, and darts through them all, and calls the dying woman by her name. 'Was it this, mine own? Was my summons a snare? Was it this thy pyre, ah me, this thine altar fires meant? How shall I begin my desolate moan? Didst thou disdain a sister's company in death? Thou shouldst have called me to share thy doom; in the self-same hour, the self-same pang of steel had been our portion. Did these very hands build it, did my voice call on our father's gods, that with thee lying thus I should be away as one without pity? Thou hast destroyed thyself and me together, O my sister, and the Sidonian lords and people, and this thy city. Give her wounds water: I will bathe them and catch on my lips the last breath that haply yet lingers.' So speaking she had climbed the high steps, and, wailing, clasped and caressed her half-lifeless sister in her bosom, and stanched the dark streams of blood with her gown. She, essaying to lift her heavy eyes, swoons back; the deep-driven wound gurgles in her breast. Thrice she rose, and strained to lift herself on her elbow; thrice she rolled back on the pillow, and with wandering eyes sought the light of high heaven, and moaned as she found it.

Then Juno omnipotent, pitying her long pain and difficult decease, sent Iris down from heaven to unloose the struggling life from the body where it clung. For since neither by fate did she perish, nor as one who had earned her death, but woefully before her day, and fired by sudden madness, not yet had Proserpine taken her lock from the golden head, nor sentenced her to the Stygian under world. So Iris on dewy saffron pinions flits down through the sky [701-705]athwart the sun in a trail of a thousand changing dyes, and stopping over her head: 'This hair, sacred to Dis, I take as bidden, and release thee from that body of thine.' So speaks she, and cuts it with her hand. And therewith all the warmth ebbed forth from her, and the life passed away upon the winds.

BOOK FIFTH

THE GAMES OF THE FLEET

Meanwhile Aeneas and his fleet in unwavering track now held mid passage, and cleft the waves that blackened under the North, looking back on the city that even now gleams with hapless Elissa's funeral flame. Why the broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the Teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses.

When their ships held the deep, nor any land farther appears, the seas all round, and all round the sky, a dusky shower drew up overhead, carrying night and storm, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Palinurus, master of the fleet, cries from the high stern: 'Alas, why have these heavy storm-clouds girt the sky? lord Neptune, what wilt thou?' Then he bids clear the rigging and bend strongly to the oars, and brings the sails across the wind, saying thus:

'Noble Aeneas, not did Jupiter give word and warrant would I hope to reach Italy under such a sky. The shifting winds roar athwart our course, and blow stronger out of the black west, and the air thickens into mist: nor are we fit to force our way on and across. Fortune is the stronger; let us follow her, and turn our course whither she calls. [23-55]Not far away, I think, are the faithful shores of thy brother Eryx, and the Sicilian haven, if only my memory retraces rightly the stars I watched before.'

Then good Aeneas: 'Even I ere now discern the winds will have it so, and thou urgest against them in vain. Turn thou the course of our sailing. Could any land be welcomer to me, or where I would sooner choose to put in my weary ships, than this that hath Dardanian Acestes to greet me, and laps in its embrace lord Anchises' dust?' This said, they steer for harbour, while the following west wind stretches their sails; the fleet runs fast down the flood, and at last they land joyfully on the familiar beach. But Acestes high on a hill-top, amazed at the friendly squadron approaching from afar, hastens towards them, weaponed and clad in the shaggy skin of a Libyan she-bear. Him a Trojan mother conceived and bore to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and comforts their weariness with his friendly store. So soon as the morrow's clear daylight had chased the stars out of the east, Aeneas calls his comrades along the beach together, and from a mounded hillock speaks:

'Great people of Dardanus, born of the high blood of gods, the yearly circle of the months is measured out to fulfilment since we laid the dust in earth, all that was left of my divine father, and sadly consecrated our altars. And now the day is at hand (this, O gods, was your will), which I will ever keep in grief, ever in honour. Did I spend it an exile on Gaetulian quicksands, did it surprise me on the Argolic sea or in Mycenae town, yet would I fulfil the yearly vows and annual ordinance of festival, and pile the altars with their due gifts. Now we are led hither, to the very dust and ashes of our father, not as I deem without [56-90]divine purpose and influence, and borne home into the friendly haven. Up then and let us all gather joyfully to the sacrifice: pray we for winds, and may he deign that I pay these rites to him year by year in an established city and consecrated temple. Two head of oxen Acestes, the seed of Troy, gives to each of your ships by tale: invite to the feast your own ancestral gods of the household, and those whom our host Acestes worships. Further, so the ninth Dawn uplift the gracious day upon men, and her shafts unveil the world, I will ordain contests for my Trojans; first for swift ships; then whoso excels in the foot-race, and whoso, confident in strength and skill, comes to shoot light arrows, or adventures to join battle with gloves of raw hide; let all be here, and let merit look for the prize and palm. Now all be hushed, and twine your temples with boughs.'

So speaks he, and shrouds his brows with his mother's myrtle. So Helymus does, so Aletes ripe of years, so the boy Ascanius, and the rest of the people follow. He advances from the assembly to the tomb among a throng of many thousands that crowd about him; here he pours on the ground in fit libation two goblets of pure wine, two of new milk, two of consecrated blood, and flings bright blossoms, saying thus: 'Hail, holy father, once again; hail, ashes of him I saved in vain, and soul and shade of my sire! Thou wert not to share the search for Italian borders and destined fields, nor the dim Ausonian Tiber.' Thus had he spoken; when from beneath the sanctuary a snake slid out in seven vast coils and sevenfold slippery spires, quietly circling the grave and gliding from altar to altar, his green chequered body and the spotted lustre of his scales ablaze with gold, as the bow in the cloud darts a thousand changing dyes athwart the sun: Aeneas stood amazed at the sight. At last he wound [91-126]his long train among the vessels and polished cups, and tasted the feast, and again leaving the altars where he had fed, crept harmlessly back beneath the tomb. Doubtful if he shall think it the Genius of the ground or his father's ministrant, he slays, as is fit, two sheep of two years old, as many swine and dark-backed steers, pouring the while cups of wine, and calling on the soul of great Anchises and the ghost rearisen from Acheron. Therewithal his comrades, as each hath store, bring gifts to heap joyfully on the altars, and slay steers in sacrifice: others set cauldrons arow, and, lying along the grass, heap live embers under spits and roast the flesh.

The desired day came, and now the ninth Dawn rode up clear and bright behind Phaëthon's coursers; and the name and renown of illustrious Acestes had stirred up all the bordering people; their holiday throng filled the shore, to see Aeneas' men, and some ready to join in contest. First of all the prizes are laid out to view in the middle of the racecourse; tripods of sacrifice, green garlands and palms, the reward of the conquerors, armour and garments dipped in purple, talents of silver and gold: and from a hillock in the midst the trumpet sounds the games begun. First is the contest of rowing, and four ships matched in weight enter, the choice of all the fleet. Mnestheus' keen oarsmen drive the swift Dragon, Mnestheus the Italian to be, from whose name is the Memmian family; Gyas the huge bulk of the huge Chimaera, a floating town, whom her triple-tiered Dardanian crew urge on with oars rising in threefold rank; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian house holds her name, sails in the tall Centaur; and in the sea-coloured Scylla Cloanthus, whence is thy family, Cluentius of Rome.

Apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that the swoln waves beat and drown what time the [127-159]north-western gales of winter blot out the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where cormorants love best to take the sun. Here lord Aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark for the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course round. Then they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold and purple; the rest of the crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked shoulders glisten wet with oil. They sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and heightened ambition drain their riotous blood. Then, when the clear trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap forward from their line; the shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels are swept into foam by the arms as they swing backward. They cleave their furrows together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed prows. Not with speed so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots over the plain, as they rush streaming from the barriers; not so do their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team, and hang forward on the whip. All the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of men that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back their cries; the noise buffets and re-echoes from the hills. Gyas shoots out in front of the noisy crowd, and glides foremost along the water; whom Cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held back by his dragging weight of pine. After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and the Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it, now the vast Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows through the salt water-ways. And now they drew nigh the rock, and were hard [160-193]on the goal; when Gyas as he led, winner over half the flood, cries aloud to Menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'Whither away so far to the right? This way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the oarblade graze the leftward reefs. Others may keep to deep water.' He spoke; but Menoetes, fearing blind rocks, turns the bow away towards the open sea. 'Whither wanderest thou away? to the rocks, Menoetes!' again shouts Gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees Cloanthus passing up behind and keeping nearer. Between Gyas' ship and the echoing crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader, and leaving the goal behind is in safe water. Then indeed grief burned fierce through his strong frame, and tears sprung out on his cheeks; heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he flings the too cautious Menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself succeeds as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and turns his tiller in to shore. But Menoetes, when at last he rose struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing years and wet in his dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a dry rock. The Teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to see him spitting the salt water from his chest. At this a joyful hope kindled in the two behind, Sergestus and Mnestheus, of catching up Gyas' wavering course. Sergestus slips forward as he nears the rock, yet not all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in front, part pressed by the Dragon's jealous prow. But striding amidships between his comrades, Mnestheus cheers them on: 'Now, now swing back, oarsmen who were Hector's comrades, whom I chose to follow me in Troy's extremity; now put forth the might and courage you showed in Gaetulian quicksands, amid Ionian seas and Malea's chasing waves. Not the first [194-227]place do I now seek for Mnestheus, nor strive for victory; though ah!--yet let them win, O Neptune, to whom thou givest it. But the shame of coming in last! Win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that disaster!' His men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork of the ship quivers to their mighty strokes, and the ground runs from under her; limbs and parched lips shake with their rapid panting, and sweat flows in streams all over them. Mere chance brought the crew the glory they desired. For while Sergestus drives his prow furiously in towards the rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. The sailors leap up and hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But Mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water and runs down the open sea. As a pigeon whose house and sweet nestlings are in the rock's recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight over the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping pinions; then gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid way and moves not her rapid wings; so Mnestheus, so the Dragon under him swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so her own speed carries her flying on. And first Sergestus is left behind, struggling on the steep rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race with broken oars. Next he catches up Gyas and the vast bulk of the Chimaera; she gives way, without her steersman. And now on the very goal Cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues and presses hard, straining all his strength. Then indeed the shouts redouble, as all together eagerly cheer on the pursuer, and [228-264]the sky echoes their din. These scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp, and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes with belief in it. And haply they had carried the prize with prows abreast, had not Cloanthus, stretching both his open hands over the sea, poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'Gods who are sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this beach will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine.' He spoke, and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus' choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him on his way. The ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. Then the seed of Anchises, summoning all in order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry, and dresses his brows in green bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large talent of silver to take away. For their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a scarf wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep Meliboean purple; woven in it is the kingly boy on leafy Ida, chasing swift stags with javelin and racing feet, keen and as one panting; him Jove's swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from Ida in his talons; his aged guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds rings fierce into the air. But to him who, next in merit, held the second place, he gives to wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of polished gold, stripped by his own conquering hand from Demoleos under tall Troy by the swift Simoïs, an ornament and safeguard among arms. Scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants Phegeus and Sagaris carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, Demoleos at [265-302]full speed would chase the scattered Trojans. The third prize he makes twin cauldrons of brass, and bowls wrought in silver and rough with tracery. And now all moved away in the pride and wealth of their prizes, their brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by all his art from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier, Sergestus brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. Even as often a serpent caught on a highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him or a wayfarer left him half dead and mangled with the blow of a heavy stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to escape, in part undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part the disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his own body; so the ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under full sail glides into the harbour mouth. Glad that the ship is saved and the crew brought back, Aeneas presents Sergestus with his promised reward. A slave woman is given him not unskilled in Minerva's labours, Pholoë the Cretan, with twin boys at her breast.

This contest sped, good Aeneas moved to a grassy plain girt all about with winding wooded hills, and amid the valley an amphitheatre, whither, with a concourse of many thousands, the hero advanced and took his seat on a mound. Here he allures with rewards and offer of prizes those who will try their hap in the fleet foot-race. Trojans and Sicilians gather mingling from all sides, Nisus and Euryalus foremost . . . Euryalus in the flower of youth and famed for beauty, Nisus for pure love of the boy. Next follows renowned Diores, of Priam's royal line; after him Salius and Patron together, the one Acarnanian, the other Tegean by family and of Arcadian blood; next two men of Sicily, Helymus and Panopes, foresters and attendants on old Acestes; many besides whose fame is hid in [303-338]obscurity. Then among them all Aeneas spoke thus: 'Hearken to this, and attend in good cheer. None out of this number will I let go without a gift. To each will I give two glittering Gnosian spearheads of polished steel, and an axe chased with silver to bear away; one and all shall be honoured thus. The three foremost shall receive prizes, and have pale olive bound about their head. The first shall have a caparisoned horse as conqueror; the second an Amazonian quiver filled with arrows of Thrace, girt about by a broad belt of gold, and on the link of the clasp a polished gem; let the third depart with this Argolic helmet for recompense.' This said, they take their place, and the signal once heard, dart over the course and leave the line, pouring forth like a storm-cloud while they mark the goal. Nisus gets away first, and shoots out far in front of the throng, fleeter than the winds or the winged thunderbolt. Next to him, but next by a long gap, Salius follows; then, left a space behind him, Euryalus third . . . and Helymus comes after Euryalus; and close behind him, lo! Diores goes flying, just grazing foot with foot, hard on his shoulder; and if a longer space were left, he would creep out past him and win the tie. And now almost in the last space, they began to come up breathless to the goal, when unfortunate Nisus trips on the slippery blood of the slain steers, where haply it had spilled over the ground and wetted the green grass. Here, just in the flush of victory, he lost his feet; they slid away on the ground they pressed, and he fell forward right among the ordure and blood of the sacrifice. Yet forgot he not his darling Euryalus; for rising, he flung himself over the slippery ground in front of Salius, and he rolled over and lay all along on the hard sand. Euryalus shoots by, wins and holds the first place his friend gave, and flies on amid prosperous clapping and cheers. Behind Helymus comes [339-373]up, and Diores, now third for the palm. At this Salius fills with loud clamour the whole concourse of the vast theatre, and the lords who looked on in front, demanding restoration of his defrauded prize. Euryalus is strong in favour, and beauty in tears, and the merit that gains grace from so fair a form. Diores supports him, who succeeded to the palm, so he loudly cries, and bore off the last prize in vain, if the highest honours be restored to Salius. Then lord Aeneas speaks: 'For you, O boys, your rewards remain assured, and none alters the prizes' order: let me be allowed to pity a friend's innocent mischance.' So speaking, he gives to Salius a vast Gaetulian lion-skin, with shaggy masses of hair and claws of gold. 'If this,' cries Nisus, 'is the reward of defeat, and thy pity is stirred for the fallen, what fit recompense wilt thou give to Nisus? to my excellence the first crown was due, had not I, like Salius, met Fortune's hostility.' And with the words he displayed his face and limbs foul with the wet dung. His lord laughed kindly on him, and bade a shield be brought forth, the workmanship of Didymaon, torn by him from the hallowed gates of Neptune's Grecian temple; with this special prize he rewards his excellence.

Thereafter, when the races are finished and the gifts fulfilled: 'Now,' he cries, 'come, whoso hath in him valour and ready heart, and lift up his arms with gauntleted hands.' So speaks he, and sets forth a double prize of battle; for the conqueror a bullock gilt and garlanded; a sword and beautiful helmet to console the conquered. Straightway without pause Dares issues to view in his vast strength, rising amid loud murmurs of the people; he who alone was wont to meet Paris in combat; he who, at the mound where princely Hector lies, struck down as he came the vast bulk upborne by conquering Butes, of Amycus' Bebrycian line, and stretched him in [374-410]death on the yellow sand. Such was Dares; at once he raises his head high for battle, displays his broad shoulders, and stretches and swings his arms right and left, lashing the air with blows. For him another is required; but none out of all the train durst approach or put the gloves on his hands. So he takes his stand exultant before Aeneas' feet, deeming he excelled all in victories; and thereon without more delay grasps the bull's horn with his left hand, and speaks thus: 'Goddess-born, if no man dare trust himself to battle, to what conclusion shall I stand? how long is it seemly to keep me? bid me carry off thy gifts.' Therewith all the Dardanians murmured assent, and bade yield him the promised prize. At this aged Acestes spoke sharply to Entellus, as he sate next him on the green cushion of grass: 'Entellus, bravest of heroes once of old in vain, wilt thou thus idly let a gift so great be borne away uncontested? Where now prithee is divine Eryx, thy master of fruitless fame? where thy renown over all Sicily, and those spoils hanging in thine house?' Thereat he: 'Desire of glory is not gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. If I had what once was mine, if I had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor heed I these gifts.' So he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of gloves of giant weight, with whose hard hide bound about his wrists valiant Eryx was wont to come to battle. They stood amazed; so stiff and grim lay the vast sevenfold oxhide sewed in with lead and iron. Dares most of all shrinks far back in horror, and the noble son of Anchises turns round this way and that their vast weight and voluminous folds. Then the old man spoke thus in deep accents: 'How, had they seen the gloves [411-444]that were Hercules' own armour, and the fatal fight on this very beach? These arms thy brother Eryx once wore; thou seest them yet stained with blood and spattered brains. In them he stood to face great Alcides; to them was I used while fuller blood supplied me strength, and envious old age had not yet strewn her snows on either temple. But if Dares of Troy will have none of these our arms, and good Aeneas is resolved on it, and my patron Acestes approves, let us make the battle even. See, I give up the gauntlets of Eryx; dismiss thy fears; and do thou put off thy Trojan gloves.' So spoke he, and throwing back the fold of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame. Many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and temple, and jawbones clash under the hard strokes. Old Entellus stands immoveable and astrain, only parrying hits with body and watchful eye. The other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. Entellus rose and struck clean out with his right downwards; his quick opponent saw the descending blow before it came, [445-481]and slid his body rapidly out of its way. Entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on Erymanthus or mighty Ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots. Teucrians and men of Sicily rise eagerly; a cry goes up, and Acestes himself runs forward, and pityingly lifts his friend and birthmate from the ground. But the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and resolved valour kindle his strength. All afire, he hunts Dares headlong over the lists, and redoubles his blows now with right hand, now with left; no breath nor pause; heavy as hailstones rattle on the roof from a storm-cloud, so thickly shower the blows from both his hands as he buffets Dares to and fro. Then lord Aeneas allowed not wrath to swell higher or Entellus to rage out his bitterness, but stopped the fight and rescued the exhausted Dares, saying thus in soothing words: 'Unhappy! what height of madness hath seized thy mind? Knowest thou not the strength is another's and the gods are changed? Yield thou to Heaven.' And with the words he proclaimed the battle over. But him his faithful mates lead to the ships dragging his knees feebly, swaying his head from side to side, and spitting from his mouth clotted blood mingled with teeth. At summons they bear away the helmet and shield, and leave palm and bull to Entellus. At this the conqueror, swelling in pride over the bull, cries: 'Goddess-born, and you, O Trojans! learn thus what my strength of body was in its prime, and from what a death Dares is saved by your recall.' He spoke, and stood right opposite in face of the bullock as it stood by, the prize of battle; then drew back his hand, and swinging the hard gauntlet sheer down between the horns, smashed the bones in upon the shattered brain. The ox rolls over, and quivering and [482-516]lifeless lies along the ground. Above it he utters these deep accents: 'This life, Eryx, I give to thee, a better payment than Dares' death; here I lay down my gloves and unconquered skill.'

Forthwith Aeneas invites all that will to the contest of the swift arrow, and proclaims the prizes. With his strong hand he uprears the mast of Serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. They gather, and a helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. First in rank, and before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out Hippocoön son of Hyrtacus; and Mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship race, Mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. Third is Eurytion, thy brother, O Pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the Achaeans. Last of all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank Acestes, he too venturing to set hand to the task of youth. Then each and all they strongly bend their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. And first the arrow of the son of Hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud clapping. Next valiant Mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the dark windy clouds. Then Eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings; and as she passed under a dark cloud, [517-553]struck her: she fell breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down carrying the arrow that pierced her. Acestes alone was over, and the prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly skill and resounding bow. At this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late days boding seers prophesied of the omen. For the flying reed blazed out amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a train athwart the sky. Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment, praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts, speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. This gift shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in high token and guerdon of affection.' So speaking, he twines green bay about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all. Nor did gentle Eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. Next comes for his prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged reed.

But lord Aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him Epytides, guardian and attendant of ungrown Iülus, and thus speaks into his faithful ear: 'Up and away, and tell Ascanius, if he now holds his band of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms.' So says he, and himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse and leave the lists free. The boys move in before their parents' faces, glittering in rank on their [554-590]bitted horses; as they go all the people of Troy and Trinacria murmur and admire. On the hair of them all rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted gold. Three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering division of twelve boys. One youthful line goes rejoicingly behind little Priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, O Polites, and destined to people Italy; he rides a Thracian horse dappled with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on his high forehead. Second is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii draw their line, little Atys, boy beloved of the boy Iülus. Last and excellent in beauty before them all, Iülus rode in on a Sidonian horse that Dido the bright had given him for token and pledge of love. The rest of them are mounted on old Acestes' Sicilian horses. . . . The Dardanians greet their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise the features of their parents of old. When they have ridden merrily round all the concourse of their gazing friends, Epytides shouts from afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. They gallop apart in equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands, and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. Next they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the [591-625]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track do the children of Troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut Carpathian or Libyan. . . .

This fashion of riding, these games Ascanius first revived, when he girt Alba the Long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the Old Latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of Troy about him. The Albans taught it their children; on from them mighty Rome received it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called Troy, and the boys the Trojan troop.

Thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. Just at this Fortune broke faith and grew estranged. While they pay the due rites to the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on, revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. She, speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of none, down her maiden path. She discerns the vast concourse, and traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left alone. But far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the Trojan women wept their lost Anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on the fathomless flood. 'Alas! after all those weary waterways, that so wide a sea is yet to come!' such is the single cry of all. They pray for a city, sick of the burden of their sea-sorrow. So she darts among them, not witless to harm, and lays by face and raiment of a goddess: she becomes Beroë, the aged wife of Tmarian Doryclus, who had once had birth and name and children, and in this guise goes among the Dardanian matrons. 'Ah, wretched we,' she cries, 'whom hostile Achaean hands did not drag to death beneath our native city! ah hapless race, for what destruction does Fortune hold thee back? The [626-660]seventh summer now declines since Troy's overthrow, while we pass measuring out by so many stars the harbourless rocks over every water and land, pursuing all the while over the vast sea an Italy that flies us, and tossing on the waves. Here are our brother Eryx' borders, and Acestes' welcome: who denies us to cast up walls and give our citizens a city? O country, O household gods vainly rescued from the foe! shall there never be a Trojan town to tell of? shall I nowhere see a Xanthus and a Simoïs, the rivers of Hector? Nay, up and join me in burning with fire these ill-ominous ships. For in sleep the phantom of Cassandra the soothsayer seemed to give me blazing brands: Here seek your Troy, she said; here is your home. Now is the time to do it; nor do these high portents allow delay. Behold four altars to Neptune; the god himself lends the firebrand and the nerve.' Speaking thus, at once she strongly seizes the fiery weapon, and with straining hand whirls it far upreared, and flings: the souls of the Ilian women are startled and their wits amazed. At this one of their multitude, and she the eldest, Pyrgo, nurse in the palace to all Priam's many children: 'This is not Beroë, I tell you, O mothers; this is not the wife of Doryclus of Rhoeteum. Mark the lineaments of divine grace and the gleaming eyes, what a breath is hers, what a countenance, and the sound of her voice and the steps of her going. I, I time agone left Beroë apart, sick and fretting that she alone must have no part in this our service, nor pay Anchises his due sacrifice.' So spoke she. . . . But the matrons at first, dubious and wavering, gazed on the ships with malignant eyes, between the wretched longing for the land they trod and the fated realm that summoned them: when the goddess rose through the sky on poised wings, and in her flight drew a vast bow beneath the clouds. Then indeed, amazed at the tokens and driven by madness, they raise a cry and snatch fire from the [661-694]hearths within; others plunder the altars, and cast on brushwood boughs and brands. The Fire-god rages with loose rein over thwarts and oars and hulls of painted fir. Eumelus carries the news of the burning ships to the grave of Anchises and the ranges of the theatre; and looking back, their own eyes see the floating cloud of dark ashes. And in a moment Ascanius, as he rode gaily before his cavalry, spurred his horse to the disordered camp; nor can his breathless guardians hold him back. 'What strange madness is this?' he cries; 'whither now hasten you, whither, alas and woe! O citizens? not on the foe nor on some hostile Argive camp; it is your own hopes you burn. Behold me, your Ascanius!' and he flung before his feet the empty helmet, put on when he roused the mimicry of war. Aeneas and the Trojan train together hurry to the spot. But the women scatter apart in fear all over the beach, and stealthily seek the woods and the hollow rocks they find: they loathe their deed and the daylight, and with changed eyes know their people, and Juno is startled out of their breast. But not thereby do the flames of the burning lay down their unconquered strength; under the wet oak the seams are alive, spouting slow coils of smoke; the creeping heat devours the hulls, and the destroyer takes deep hold of all: nor does the heroes' strength avail nor the floods they pour in. Then good Aeneas rent away the raiment from his shoulders and called the gods to aid, stretching forth his hands: 'Jupiter omnipotent, if thou hatest not Troy yet wholly to her last man, if thine ancient pity looks at all on human woes, now, O Lord, grant our fleet to escape the flame, and rescue from doom the slender Teucrian estate. Or do thou plunge to death this remnant, if I deserve it, with levelled thunderbolt, and here with thine own hand smite us down.' Scarce had he uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth trembles [695-726]to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and volleying blasts of the South. The ships are filled from overhead, the half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction.