Heard, and nearer the conflagrations are rolling their eddies.
"Therefore, dear father, now come and assume on our neck a position;
I on my shoulders will bear thee, nor yet shall the labor oppress me;
Happen what may in the future, there one and a common exposure,
One salvation shall be to us both. Let the little Iülus

Be my attendant, and, wife, at a distance keep watch of my footsteps.
You, ye domestics, now give your attention to what I shall tell you:
As you emerge from the city a mound, and a primitive temple
Stands of deserted Ceres, and near it a veteran cypress,
Guarded for many a year with religious awe by the fathers:
There we, at that one station, will gather from different quarters.
Take in thy hand, my father, the relics and national home-gods:
It were for me, just come from so bloody and recent a carnage,
Sacrilege even to touch them, until in a rivulet living
I shall have bathed:"

Thus having spoken, I over my broad-sized shoulders and bended
Neck am draped with a robe, and the skin of the tawniest lion.
Then to the burden I stoop; to my right hand little Iülus
Knitted his own, and follows his father with paces unequal:
After me straggles my wife. We are on through the gloomiest passes
Hurried, and me, whom late were no weapons projected upon me
Moving, nor Grecians amassed in a charge from an opposite column,
Now each rustle of air is affrighting, each sound is exciting,
Kept in suspense and fearing alike for my burden and comrade.

710.

715

720

725

I was already approaching the gates, and methought I had safely Traversed the journey, when suddenly, thickly the patter of footsteps, Seemed to be right at our ears, and my father, ahead through the shadows Peering, exclaims, "My son, O escape, my son, they are on us!

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I can discern the flash of their shields and the gleam of their helmets."
Here some malignant divinity—which one I know not-bereft me,
Trembling and wildered, of reason; for I, in my running, the by-paths
Follow, and wholly avoid the familiar region of highways,
Ah me! my consort Creüsa, or caught by some pitiful mishaps
Tarried behind, or strayed from the way, or sat down in exhaustion,
Still is uncertain; thereafter she ne'er was restored to our vision:
I did not notice her loss, nor recalled I my soul to reflection,
Till we arrived at the mound and the hallowed retreat of the ancient
Ceres: but here, when they all were collected at length she alone was
Missing, and baffled the search of companions and son and her husband.
Whom did I not all frantic accuse both of men and immortals,

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740

745

Or what crueler lot did I see in the wreck of the city?

I my Ascanius, father Anchises and Teucran Penates,
Trust to my comrades, and down in a winding valley secrete them;
I to the city repair, and am girt with my glittering armor.
Set is my mind to reopen all risks, and return through the whole of
Troja, and once more boldly expose my head to the perils.

First I repair to the walls and the thresholds dim of the gateway,
Whence I had lifted my steps in departure, and follow my footprints
Back as observed in the night, and trace them along by the glimmer.
Everywhere horror, while even the silences frighten my spirits.

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Back thence home, perchance, if perchance, she there wended her footsteps, Take I me. In have the Danaäns rushed, and were holding the whole house. Fierce the devouring fire by the wind is uprolled to the topmost

Battlements: flames are above them, their surge to the welkin is rampant.

On I proceed, and the homestead of Priam and castle revisit.
Now in the desolate porticoes, late the asylum of Juno,
Phoenix and direful Ulysses as sentinels chosen were standing,

760

Guarding the pillage. From all sides hither the treasures of Troja,
Plundered from burning holies of holies, and deities' tables,
Tankards of solid gold, and the tapestry taken as booty,
Piled up together: boys and timorous matrons in long row
Stand there round it:-

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Nay, but I even ventured to fling out my cries through the darkness:`
Filled I with clamor, in calling, the streets, and mournful Creüsa—
Vainly repeating it over and over-Creüsa I shouted.

770

While I was searching and raving unchecked the abodes of the city,
Cheerless the figure, and shadowy spectre itself of Creusa
Started before mine eyes, and the image was larger than common:
Stood I astounded, my hair rose and choked was my voice in expression.
Then thus seemed she to speak, and in these words soothe my distresses:
"How does it aid thee so much to indulge in delirious sorrow,
O my dear husband? without the behest of the gods these allotments
Come not; it is not allowed thee to take as attendant Creüsa
Hence, nor does he, the ruler of upper Olympus, permit it.
Long is the exile, and vast is the ocean expanse to be traversed :
Thou shalt the land of Hesperia reach, where the Lydian Thybris
Flows in its slow march mid the luxuriant fields of its heroes.
There are alloted thee joyous events, and a realm and a royal
Consort; O chase then away the tears for thy cherished Creüsa :
I on the Myrmidons', or the Dolopians' lordly dominions

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780

785

Never shall gaze, nor go to be slave to the matrons of Grecia,
Dardanus' daughter, and daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess :

But in these nether realms does the gods' great mother detain me.
Now farewell, and retain thy love for our mutual offspring."

When she had spoken these words she deserted me, weeping and longing
Much to bespeak her, and back she in airy vacuity vanished.
Thrice I attempted my arms there round her neck to encircle;

790

Thrice unavailingly grasped did the phantom escape from my clutches,
Like the intangible winds, or the guise of a fugitive slumber.

Thus, at length with the night far spent, I revisit my comrades ;

795

But an inordinate number of newly recruited attendants
Here I astonished discover have joined them, both matrons and heroes,
Young men banded for exile, a motley and pitiful rabble.
They have assembled from all sides, ready with souls and resources,
Bound o'er the ocean to whatever lands I may choose to conduct them.
Now on the heights of the summit of Ida was brightly the day star
Rising and ushering day, and blocked, were the Danaäns holding
Gateways' thresholds; no longer was hope of assistance afforded:
Hence I submitted, and lifting my sire I repaired to the mountain.

BOOK III.

Still at the Banquet, Eneas narrates his adventurous journeys,
Roaming from country to country till driven by tempest to Carthage.

AFTER it suited supernals the fortunes of Asia and Priam's
Ruin-unmeriting nation to wreck, and has fallen the once proud
Ilium, and low on the ground smokes all Neptunian Troja,
We are, by deities' auguries, driven to seek for sequestered
Places of exile, and desolate lands; and we build us a squadron
Down by Antandros itself, by the mountains of Phrygian Ida,
Knowing not whither the fates may conduct us, or where they will let us
Settle, and muster our men. But scarce had the earliest summer
Opened, and Father Anchises was bidding set sail on the venture;
When I in weeping forever the shores and the ports of my country
Leave, and the plains where Troja was: I am launched as an exile
Out on the deep with my comrades, and son,and home-gods, and great gods.
Far in its limitless plains, there is peopled a province of Mavors,
Thracians now till it, though formerly ruled by the daring Lycurgus,
Guest-land ancient of Troja, and having reciprocal home-gods

While there was fortune. I thither am wafted, and there, on a winding
Shore, I my earliest ramparts place, though intruding with adverse
Fates, and assume from my own name for us the name of ÆNEANS.
I was solemnities rendering to my Dioneän mother,

And to the patronal gods of our inchoate schemes, and a sleek bull
Slaughtering out on the beach to the sovereign supreme of celestials.
Close by the spot, as it chanced, was a mound, on whose summit were cornel
Sprouts, and a myrtle bristling with clusters of tapering spear-shafts ;
This I approached, and essayed from the ground to pull up the verdant
Thicket, in order with foliaged branches to shelter the altars,

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25

When I beheld an anomaly horrid and wondrous to utter :

For from the tree which is first from the soil, with its rootlets dissevered,

Plucked, lo! streaming out oozingly livid and ebony blood-drops

Trickle, and spatter the earth with the gore. A shivering horror

Thrills through my quivering limbs, and my chilled blood curdles with terror! 30 Once and again I proceed to pull up a pliable offshoot

Still of another, and search to the core the mysterious causes :

Black in the same style drips from the bark of that other the blood-clots!
Pondering much in my mind, I implore of the nymphs of the wildwoods,
Yea, and of father Gradivus, who patrons the Getian moorlands,
Duly to second the vision and lighten the marvelous omen.

35

But, when at length I with still more desperate effort, the third stock
Grapple, and struggle amain, with my knees on the opposite sand-bank-
Shall I speak out, or be silent?—a piteous moan from the deep mound
Issues, and back to my ears is the answering utterance rendered :
"Why thus torture a wretch, O Æneas? O spare now the buried;
Spare, too, thy pious hands the incurment! No stranger hath Troja
Borne me to thee, nor yet does this gore-clot ooze from a dead trunk :
Ah! escape from these murderous lands, escape from this covetous seacoast.
I'm Polydorus! hereon hath an iron harvest of weapons

40

45

Covered me up transfixed, and hath grown to accuminate javelins."

Verily then I, oppressed in my mind with bewildering terror,

Stood aghast, and my hair rose, and choked was my voice in expression.

This Polydorus, with marvelous weight of gold, had aforetime

Luckless Priam entrusted a-sly for tuitional nurture

50

Unto the Thracian king, while as yet he Dardania's armor
Doubted, and saw the city beleaguered with martial investment.

Soon as the Teucran forces were shattered, and fortune forsook them,

He Agamemnon's cause and his conquering armor espousing,
Tramples on every right, and slays Polydorus, and basely
Seizes his gold. To what dost thou not goad bosoms of mortals,
Cursable thirst for gold! When the shudder my bones has forsaken,
I to the chosen chiefs of the people, and first to my parent,
Bring the report of the deities' wonders, and ask their opinion;
All are of similar mind, to depart from the criminal province,
Quit the perfidious guest-land, and give to our vessels the south-winds.
Hence we award Polydorus sepulture, and soon an enormous
Mound of earth is upheaped, and altars are reared to his spirit,
Mournfully draped with cerulean wreaths and funereal cypress;
Round them are Ilian matrons, with tresses as wonted disheveled ;

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