The Aeneid by Virgil (best novel books to read TXT) 📕

Nor Ismarus was wanting to the war,
Directing pointed arrows from afar,
And death with poison arm’d⁠—in Lydia born,
Where plenteous harvests the fat fields adorn;
Where proud Pactolus floats the fruitful lands,
And leaves a rich manure of golden sands.
There Capys, author of the Capuan name,
And there was Mnestheus too, increas’d in fame,
Since Turnus from the camp he cast with shame.

Thus mortal war was wag’d on either side.
Meantime the hero cuts the nightly tide:
For, anxious, from Evander when he went,
He sought the Tyrrhene camp, and Tarchon’s tent;
Expos’d the cause of coming to the chief;
His name and country told, and ask’d relief;
Propos’d the terms; his own small strength declar’d;
What vengeance proud Mezentius had prepar’d:
What Turnus, bold and violent, design’d;
Then shew’d the slipp’ry state of humankind,
And fickle fortune; warn’d him to beware,
And to his wholesome counsel added pray’r.
Tarchon, without delay, the treaty signs,
And to the Trojan troops the Tuscan joins.

They soon set sail; nor now the fates withstand;
Their forces trusted with a foreign hand.
Aeneas leads; upon his stern appear
Two lions carv’d, which rising Ida bear⁠—
Ida, to wand’ring Trojans ever dear.
Under their grateful shade Aeneas sate,
Revolving war’s events, and various fate.
His left young Pallas kept, fix’d to his side,
And oft of winds enquir’d, and of the tide;
Oft of the stars, and of their wat’ry way;
And what he suffer’d both by land and sea.

Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring!
The Tuscan leaders, and their army sing,
Which follow’d great Aeneas to the war:
Their arms, their numbers, and their names declare.

A thousand youths brave Massicus obey,
Borne in the Tiger thro’ the foaming sea;
From Asium brought, and Cosa, by his care:
For arms, light quivers, bows and shafts, they bear.
Fierce Abas next: his men bright armour wore;
His stern Apollo’s golden statue bore.
Six hundred Populonia sent along,
All skill’d in martial exercise, and strong.
Three hundred more for battle Ilva joins,
An isle renown’d for steel, and unexhausted mines.
Asylas on his prow the third appears,
Who heav’n interprets, and the wand’ring stars;
From offer’d entrails prodigies expounds,
And peals of thunder, with presaging sounds.
A thousand spears in warlike order stand,
Sent by the Pisans under his command.

Fair Astur follows in the wat’ry field,
Proud of his manag’d horse and painted shield.
Gravisca, noisome from the neighb’ring fen,
And his own Caere, sent three hundred men;
With those which Minio’s fields and Pyrgi gave,
All bred in arms, unanimous, and brave.

Thou, Muse, the name of Cinyras renew,
And brave Cupavo follow’d but by few;
Whose helm confess’d the lineage of the man,
And bore, with wings display’d, a silver swan.
Love was the fault of his fam’d ancestry,
Whose forms and fortunes in his ensigns fly.
For Cycnus lov’d unhappy Phaeton,
And sung his loss in poplar groves, alone,
Beneath the sister shades, to soothe his grief.
Heav’n heard his song, and hasten’d his relief,
And chang’d to snowy plumes his hoary hair,
And wing’d his flight, to chant aloft in air.
His son Cupavo brush’d the briny flood:
Upon his stern a brawny Centaur stood,
Who heav’d a rock, and, threat’ning still to throw,
With lifted hands alarm’d the seas below:
They seem’d to fear the formidable sight,
And roll’d their billows on, to speed his flight.

Ocnus was next, who led his native train
Of hardy warriors thro’ the wat’ry plain:
The son of Manto by the Tuscan stream,
From whence the Mantuan town derives the name⁠—
An ancient city, but of mix’d descent:
Three sev’ral tribes compose the government;
Four towns are under each; but all obey
The Mantuan laws, and own the Tuscan sway.

Hate to Mezentius arm’d five hundred more,
Whom Mincius from his sire Benacus bore:
Mincius, with wreaths of reeds his forehead cover’d o’er.
These grave Auletes leads: a hundred sweep
With stretching oars at once the glassy deep.
Him and his martial train the Triton bears;
High on his poop the sea-green god appears:
Frowning he seems his crooked shell to sound,
And at the blast the billows dance around.
A hairy man above the waist he shows;
A porpoise tail beneath his belly grows;
And ends a fish: his breast the waves divides,
And froth and foam augment the murm’ring tides.

Full thirty ships transport the chosen train
For Troy’s relief, and scour the briny main.

Now was the world forsaken by the sun,
And Phoebe half her nightly race had run.
The careful chief, who never clos’d his eyes,
Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies.
A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood,
Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida’s wood;
But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep,
As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep.
They know him from afar; and in a ring
Enclose the ship that bore the Trojan king.
Cymodoce, whose voice excell’d the rest,
Above the waves advanc’d her snowy breast;
Her right hand stops the stern; her left divides
The curling ocean, and corrects the tides.
She spoke for all the choir, and thus began
With pleasing words to warn th’ unknowing man:
“Sleeps our lov’d lord? O goddess-born, awake!
Spread ev’ry sail, pursue your wat’ry track,
And haste your course. Your navy once were we,
From Ida’s height descending to the sea;
Till Turnus, as at anchor fix’d we stood,
Presum’d to violate our holy wood.
Then, loos’d from shore, we fled his fires profane
(Unwillingly we broke our master’s chain),
And since have sought you thro’ the Tuscan main.
The mighty Mother chang’d our forms to these,
And gave us life immortal in the seas.
But young Ascanius, in his camp distress’d,
By your insulting foes is hardly press’d.
Th’ Arcadian horsemen, and Etrurian host,
Advance in order on the Latian coast:
To cut their way the Daunian chief designs,
Before their troops can reach the Trojan lines.
Thou, when the rosy morn restores the light,
First arm thy soldiers for th’ ensuing fight:
Thyself the fated sword of Vulcan wield,
And bear aloft th’ impenetrable shield.
Tomorrow’s sun, unless my skill be vain,
Shall see huge heaps of foes in battle slain.”
Parting, she spoke; and with immortal force
Push’d on the vessel in her wat’ry course;
For well she knew the way. Impell’d behind,
The ship flew forward, and outstripp’d the wind.
The rest make up. Unknowing of the cause,
The chief admires their speed, and happy omens draws.

Then thus he pray’d, and fix’d on heav’n his eyes:
“Hear thou, great Mother of the deities.
With turrets crown’d! (on Ida’s holy hill
Fierce tigers, rein’d and curb’d, obey thy will.)
Firm thy own omens; lead us on to fight;
And let thy