"Evoe, O Bacchus!" thus began the song, And "Evoe!" answer'd all the female throng: "O virgin! worthy thee alone," she cry'd ; "O worthy thee alone!" the crew reply'd ; "For thee she feeds her hair, she leads the dance, And with the winding ivy wreathes her lance." Like fury seiz'd the rest; the progress known, All seek the mountains, and forsake the town: All clad in skins of beasts the javelin bear, Give to the wanton winds their flowing hair: And shrieks and shoutings rend the suffering air. The queen, herself, inspir'd with rage divine, Shook high above her head a flaming pine: Then roll'd her baggard eyes around the throng, And sung, in Turnus' name, the nuptial song! "lö, ye Latian dames, if any here

Hold your unhappy queen, Amata, dear;

If there be here," she said, "who dare maintain
My right, nor think the name of mother vain,
Unbind your fillets, loose your flowing hair,
And orgies and nocturnal rites prepare."
Amata's breast the fury thus invades,
And fires with rage, amid the sylvan shades.
Then, when she found her venom spread so far,
The royal house embroil'd in civil war,
Rais'd on her dusky wings, she cleaves the skies,
And seeks the palace where young Turnus lies.
His town, as fame reports, was built of old
By Danaë, pregnant with almighty gold:
Who fled her father's rage, and with a train
Of following Argives, through the stormy main,
Driv'n by the southern blasts, was fated here to
reign.

'Twas Ardua once, now Ardea's name it bears,
Once a fair city, now consum'd with years.
Here in his lofty palace Turnus lay,
Betwixt the confines of the night and day,
Secure in sleep: the fury laid aside

Her looks and limbs, and with new methods try'
The foulness of th' infernal form to hide.
Propp'd on a staff, she takes the trembling mien,
Her face is furrow'd, and her front obscene :
Deep-dinted wrinkles on her cheek she draws,
Sunk are her eyes, and toothless are her jaws :
Her hoary hair with holy fillets bound,
Her temples with an olive wreath are crown'd.
Old Calibe, who kept the sacred fane
Of Juno, now she seem'd, and thus began:
Appearing in a dream, to rouse the careless man.
"Shall Turnus then such endless toil sustain,
In fighting fields, and conquer towns in vain?
Win, for a Trojan head to wear the prize?
Usurp thy crown, enjoy thy victories?
The bride and sceptre which thy lood has bought,
The king transfers, and foreign heirs are sought:
Go now, deluded man, and seek again
New toils, new dangers, on the dusty plain.
Repel the Tuscan foes, their city seize;
Protect the Latians in luxurious ease.
This dream all-powerful Juno sends : I bear
Her mighty mandates, and her words you hear.
Haste, arm your Ardeans, issue to the plain,
With faith to friend, assault the Trojan train:
Their thoughtless chiefs, their painted ships that

lie

In Tiber's mouth, with fire and sword destroy.
The Latian king, unless he shall submit,
Own his old promise, and his new forget;
Let him, in arms, the power of Turnus prove,
And learn to fear whom he disdains to love.

For such is Heaven's command." The youthful prince

With scorn reply'd; and made this bold defence:
"You tell me, mother, what I knew before;
The Phrygian fleet is landed on the shore:
1 neither fear, nor will provoke, the war:
My fate is Juno's most peculiar care,
But time has made you dote, and vainly tell
Of arms imagin'd, in your lonely cell:
Go, be the temple and the gods your care;
Permit the men the thought of peace and war."
These haughty words Alecto's rage provoke,
And frighted Turnus trembled as she spoke.
Her eyes grew stiffen'd, and with sulphur burn,
Her hideous looks, and hellish form, return:
Her curling snakes with hissings fill the place,
And open all the furies of her face!
Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes,
She cast him backward as he strove to rise,
And, lingering, sought to frame some new replies,
High on her head she rears two twisted snakes;
Her chain she rattles, and her whip she shakes;
And, churning bloody foam, thus loudly speaks:
"Behold whom time has made to dote, and tell
Of arms, imagin'd in her lowly cell:
Behold the fate's infernal minister;
War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear!"
Thus having said, her smouldering torch im-
press'd

With her full force, she plung'd into his breast.
Aghast he wak'd, and, starting from his bed,
Cold sweat, in clammy drops, his limbs o'erspread:
"Arms, arms!" he cries; "my sword and shield
prepare!"

He breathes defiance, blood, and mortal war.
So when with crackling flames a caldron fries,
The bubbling waters from the bottom rise:
Above their brims they force their fiery way;
Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.
The peace polluted thus, a chosen band
He first commissions to the Latian land,
In threatening embassy: then rais'd the rest,
To meet in arms th' intruding Trojan guest-
To force the foes from the Lavinian shore,
And Italy's endanger'd peace restore;
Himself alone, an equal match he boasts,
To fight the Phrygian and Ausonian hosts.
The gods invok'd, the Rutili prepare
Their arms, and warm each other to the war.
His beauty these, and those his blooming age,
The rest his house, and his own fame, engage.
While Turnus urges thus his enterprise,
The Stygian fury to the Trojans flies:

| New frauds invents, and takes a steepy stand,
Which overlooks the vale with wide command;
Where fair Ascanius and his youthful train,
With horns and hounds, a hunting match ordain,
And pitch their toils around the shady plain.
The fury fires the pack; they snuff, they vent,
And feed their hungry nostrils with the scent.
'Twas of a well-grown stag, whose antlers rise
High o'er his front, his beams invade the skies:
From this light cause, th' infernal maid prepares
The country churls to mischief, hate, and wars.

The stately beast, the two Tyrrhedæ bred,
Snatch'd from his dam, and the tame youngling fed.
Their father Tyrrheus did their fodder bring;
Tyrrheus, chief ranger to the Latian king:
Their sister Sylvia cherish'd with her care
The little wanton, and did wreaths prepare

To hang his budding horns: with ribbons ty'd
His tender neck, and comb'd his silken hide;
And bath'd his body. Patient of command,
In time he grew, and, growing, us'd to hand.
He waited at his master's board for food;
Then sought his savage kindred in the wood:
Where, gazing all the day, at night he came
To his known lodgings, and his country dame.
This household beast, that us'd the woodland
grounds,

Was view'd at first by the young hero's hounds;
As down the stream he swam, to seek retreat
In the cool waters, and to quench bis heat.
Ascanius, young, and eager of his game,
Soon bent his bow, uncertain in his aim:
But the dire fiend the fatal arrow guides,
Which pierc'd his bowels through his panting sides.
The bleeding creature issues from the floods,
Possest with fear, and seeks his known abodes;
His old familiar hearth, and household gods.
He falls, he fills the house with heavy groans;
Implores their pity, and his pain bemoans.
Young Sylvia beats her breast, and cries aloud
For succour from the clownish neighbourhood:
The churls assemble; for the fiend who lay
In the close woody covert urg'd their way.
One with a brand, yet burning from the flame;
Arm'd with a knotty club, another came :
Whate'er they catch or find, without their care,
Their fury makes an instrument of war.
Tyrrheus, the foster-father of the beast,
Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist:
But held his hand from the descending stroke,
And left his wedge within the cloven oak,
To whet their courage, and their rage provoke.
And now the goddess, exercis'd in ill,
Who watch'd an hour to work her impious will,
Ascends the roof, and to her crooked horn,
Such as was then by Latian shepherds borne,
Adds all her breath; the rocks and woods around,
And mountains, tremble at th' infernal sound.
The sacred lake of Trivia from afar,
The Veline fountains, and sulphureous Nar,
Shake at the baleful blast, the signal of the war.
Young mothers wildly stare, with fear possest,
And strain their helpless infants to their breast.
The clowns, a boisterous, rude, ungovern'd

crew,

With furious haste to the loud summons flew.
The powers of Troy, then issuing on the plain,
With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:
Nor theirs a raw and unexperienc'd train,
But a firm body of embattled men.

At first, while fortune favour'd neither side,
The fight with clubs and burning brands was try'd:
But now, both parties reinforc'd, the fields
Are bright with flaming swords and brazen shields.
A shining harvest either host displays,
And shoots against the Sun with equal rays.

Thus when a black-brow'd gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curl'd ocean fries;
Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies:
Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,
The muddy bottom o'er the clouds is thrown.

First Almon falls, old Tyrrhens' eldest care, Pierc'd with an arrow from the distant war: Fixt in his throat the flying weapon stood, And stopp'd his breath, and drank his vital blood. Huge heaps of s'ain around the body rise; Among the rest, the rich Galesus lies:

A good old man, while peace he preach'd in vain,
Amidst the madness of th' unruly train:
Five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures fill'd;
His lands a hundred yoke of oxen till'd.
Thus, while in equal scales their fortune stood,
The fury bath'd them in each other's blood.
Then, having fix'd the fight, exulting flies,
And bears fulfill'd her promise to the skies;
To Juno thus she speaks: " Behold 'tis done;
The blood already drawn, the war begun ;
The discord is complete, nor can they cease
The dire debate, nor you command the peace.
Now since the Latian and the Trojan brood
Have tasted vengeance, and the sweets of blood,
Speak, and my power shall add this office more;
The neighbouring nations of th' Ausonian shore
Shall hear the dreadful rumour from afar,
Of arm'd invasion, and embrace the war.
Then Juno thus: "The grateful work is done;
The seed of discord sow'd, the war begun ;
Frauds, fears, and fury, have possess'd the state,
And fix'd the causes of a lasting hate:
A bloody Hymen shall th' alliance join
Betwixt the Trojan and Ausonian line:
But thou with speed to Night and Hell repair,
For not the gods nor angry Jove will bear
Thy lawless wandering walks in upper air.
Leave what remains to me." Saturnia said:
The sullen fiend her sounding wings display'd,
Unwilling left the light, and sought the nether
In midst of Italy, well known to fame, [shade.
There lies a lake, Amsanctus is the name,
Below the lofty mounts on either side;
Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide:
Full in the centre of the sacred wood
An arm arises of the Stygian flood;
Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing
Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around.
Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell,
And opens wide the grinning jaws of Hell.
To this infernal lake the fury flies;

[sound,

[skies.

Here hides her hated head, and frees the labouring
Saturnian Juno, now, with double care,
Attends the fatal process of the war.

The clowns return'd from battle bear the slain,
Implore the gods, and to their king complain.
The corpse of Almon and the rest are shown,
Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town,
Ambitious Turnus in the press appears,
And, aggravating crimes, augments their fears:
Proclaims his private injuries aloud,

A solemn promise made, and disavow'd;
A foreign son is sought, and a mixt mongrel brood.
Then they, whose mothers, frantic with their fear,
In woods and wilds the flags of Bacchus bear,
And lead his dances with disheveЛl'd hair;
Increase the clamour, and the war demand
(Such was Amata's interest in the land)
Against the public sanctions of the peace;
Against all omens of their ill success;
With fates averse, the rout in arms resort,
To force their monarch, and insult the court.
But, like a rock unmov'd, a rock that braves
The raging tempest and the rising waves,
Propp'd on himself he stands; his solid sides
Wash off the sea-weeds, and the sounding tides:
So stood the pious prince unmov'd, and long
Sustain'd the madness of the noisy throng.
But when he found that Juno's power prevail'd,
And all the methods of cool counsel fail'd,

Messapus next, (great Neptune was his sire)
Secure from steel, and fated from the fire,
In pomp appears; and with his ardour warms
A heartless train, unexercis'd in arms:
The just Faliscians he to battle brings

And those who live where lake Ciminia springs;
And where Feronia's grove and temple stands,
Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands:
All these in order march, and marching sing
The warlike actions of their sea-born king.
Like a long team of snowy swans on high,
Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky,
Which homeward from their watery pastures borne,
They sing, and Asia's lakes their notes return.
Not one who heard their music from afar,
Would think these troops an army train'd to war:
But flocks of fowl, that when the tempests roar,
With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.
Then Clausus came, who led a numerous band
Of troops embody'd, from the Sabine land:
And in himself alone an army brought.
"Twas he the noble Claudian race begot:
The Claudian race, ordain'd, in times to come,
To share the greatness of imperial Rome,
He led the Cures forth of high renown,
Mutuscans from their olive bearing town;
And all th' Eretian powers: besides a band
That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land:
And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,
And mountaineers, that from Severus came.
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play.
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:

The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
And the cold Nursians come to close the rear:
Mix'd with the natives born of Latine blood,
Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
When pale Orion sets in wintery rain;
Nor thicker harvest on rich Hermes rise,
Or Lycian fields, when Phoebus burns the skies;
Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring
around;
[ground.
Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid
High in his chariot then Halesus came,
A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name:
From Agamemnon born: to Turnus' aid,
A thousand men the youthful hero led;
Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown'd,
And fierce Aruncans from their hilly ground:
And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
And where, with shoaly fords, Vulturnus roars;
Cales and Osea's old inhabitants,
And rough Saticulans inur'd to wants :
Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
Fasten'd with leather thongs, to gall the foe.
Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear,
And, on their warding arms, like bucklers bear.
Nor, Ebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
From nymph Semethis and old Teton sprung:
Who then in Teleboan Capri reign'd,
But that short isle th' ambitious youth disdain'd;
And o'er Campania stretch'd his ample sway;
Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea :
O'er Batulum, and where Abella sces,
From her high towers, the harvest of her trees,
And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold ;

Sling weighty stones when from afar they fight: Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light. Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went, And led the mountain-troops that Nursia sent. The rude Equicolæ his rule obey'd; [trade. Hunting their sport, and plundering was their In arms they plough'd, to battle still prepar'd: Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.

Umbro the priest, the proud Marubians led, By king Archippus sent to Turnus' aid; And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head. His wand and holy words, the viper's rage, And venom'd wound of serpents, could assuage. He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep. But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art, To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart. Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods In sighs remurmur'd to the Fucine floods. The son of fam'd Hippolytus was there; Fam'd as his sire, and as his mother fair. Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore, And nurs'd his youth along the marshy shore; Where great Diana's peaceful altars flame In fruitful fields, and Virbius was his name. Hippolytus, as old records have said, Was by his stepdame sought to share her bed: But when no female arts his mind could move, She turn❜d to furious hate her impious love. Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore, Another's crimes th' unhappy hunter bore, Glutting his father's eyes with guiltless gore. But chaste Diana, who his death deplor'd, With Esculapian herbs his life restor❜d. When Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain, The dead inspir'd with vital breath again, Struck to the centre with his flaming dart, Th' unhappy founder of the godlike art. But Trivia kept in secret shades alone Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown; And call'd him Virbius in th' Egerian grove: Where then he liv'd obscure, but safe from Jove. For this, from Trivia's temple and her wood Are coursers driven, who shed their master's blood; Affrighted by the monsters of the flood. His son, the second Virbius, yet retain'd His father's art, and warrior steeds he rein'd.

Amid the troops, and like the leading god, High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode: A triple pile of plumes his crest adorn'd, On which, with belching flames, Chimæra burn'd: The more the kindled combat rises higher, The more with fury burns the blazing fire. Fair lö grac'd his shield, but lö now With horns exalted stands, and seems to lowe: (A noble charge) her keeper by her side, To watch her walks, his hundred eyes apply'd; And on the brims her sire, the watery god, Roll'd from a silver urn his crystal flood: A cloud of soot succeeds, and fills the fields With swords and pointed spears, and clattering Of Argives, and of old Sicanian bands, [shields: And those who plough the rich Satulian lands; Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields, And the proud Labicans, with painted shields. And those who near Numician streams reside, And those whom Tiber's holy forests bide; Or Circe's hills from the main land divide: Where Ufens glide along the lowly lands, Or the black water of Pomptina stands,