The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible preparations. Turnus sends to Diomedes. Eneas goes in person to beg succours from Evander and the Tuscans. Evander receives him kindly, furnishes him with men, and sends his son Pallas with him. Vulcan, at the request of Venus, makes arms for her son Æneas, and draws on his shield the most memorable actions of his posterity.
HEN Turnus had assembled all his pow'rs,
His standard planted on Laurentum's tow'rs,
When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,
Had giv❜n the signal of approaching war,
Had rous'd the neighing steeds to scour the fields, 5
While the fierce riders clatter'd on their shields,
Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
To join th' allies, and headlong rush to war.
Fierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,
With bold Mezentius, who blasphem'd aloud.
These through the country took their wasteful course,
The fields to forage, and to gather force.
Then Venulus to Diomede they send,
To beg his aid Ausonia to defend,
Declare the common danger, and inform
The Grecian leader of the growing storm:
Æneas, landed on the Latian coast,
With banish'd gods, and with a baffled host,
Yet now aspir'd to conquest of the state,
And claim'd a title from the gods and fate;
What num'rous nations in his quarrel came,
And how they spread his formidable name.
What he design'd, what mischiefs might arise,
If fortune favour'd his first enterprise,
Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears, [25
And common int'rest was involv'd in theirs."
While Turnus and th' allies thus urge the war,
The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
Beholds the tempest which his foes prepare.
This way and that he turns his anxious mind;
Thinks and rejects the counsels he design'd;
Explores himself in vain, in ev'ry part,
And gives no rest to his distracted heart.
So, when the sun by day, or moon by night,
Strike on the polish'd brass their trembling light, 35 The glitt ring species here and there divide,
And cast their dubious beams from side to side;
Now on the walls, now on the pavement play,
And to the cieling flash the glaring day.
'Twas night and weary nature lull'd asleep
The birds of air, and fishes of the deep,
And beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan chief
Was laid on Tyber's banks, oppress'd with grief,
And found in silent slumber late relief.
Then, through the shadows of the poplar wood, 45 Arose the father of the Roman flood;
An azure robe was o'er his body spread,
A wreath of shady reeds adorn'd his head:
Thus, manifest to sight, the god appear'd,
And with these pleasing words his sorrow cheer'd: "Undoubted offspring of etherial race,
O long expected in this promis'd place!
Who, through the foes, hast borne thy banish'd gods,
Restor❜d them to their hearths, and old abodes -
This is thy happy home, the clime where fate
Ordains thee to restore the Trojan state.
Fear not! The war shall end in lasting peace,
And all the rage of haughty Juno cease.
And that this nightly vision may not seem
Th' effect of fancy, or an idle dream,
A sow beneath an oak shall lie along,
All white herself, and white her thirty young.
When thirty rolling years have run their race,
Thy son Ascanius, on this empty space,
Shall build a royal town, of lasting fame,
Which from this omen shall receive the name.
Time shall approve the truth.-For what remains, And how with sure success to crown thy pains,
With patience next attend. A banish'd band,
Driv'n with Evander from th' Arcadian land,
Have planted here, and plac`d on high their walls;
Their town the founder Pallanteum calls,
Deriv'd from Pallas, his great grandsire's name:
But the fierce Latians old possession claim,
With war infesting the new colony.
These make thy friends, and on their aid rely.
To thy free passage I submit my streams.
Wake, son of Venus, from thy pleasing dreams;
And, when the setting stars are lost in day,
To Juno's pow'r thy just devotion pay;
With sacrifice the wrathful queen appease :
Her pride at length shall fall, her fury cease,
When thou return'st victorious from the war,
Perform thy vows to me with grateful care,
The god am I, whose yellow water flows
Around these fields, and fattens as it goes:
Tyber my name-among the rolling floods,
Renown'd on earth, esteem'd among the gods.
My waves shall wash the walls of mighty Rome." 90
He said; and plung'd below.
His dream Æneas and his sleep forsook.
He rose, and, looking up, beheld the skies
With purple blushing, and the day arise.
Then water in his hollow palm he took
From Tyber's flood, and thus the pow'rs bespoke :
"Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are fed,
And father Tyber, in thy sacred bed
Receive Æneas, and from danger keep.
Whatever fount, whatever holy deep,
Conceals thy wat❜ry stores-where'er they rise, And, bubbling from below, salute the skies— Thou, king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn Suffices fatness to the fruitful corn,
For this thy kind compassion of our woes,
Shalt share my morning song, and ev'ning vows.
But, oh! be present to thy people's aid,
And firm the gracious promise thou hast made."
Thus having said, two galleys, from his stores,
With care he chuses, mans, and fits with oars. 110
Now on the shore the fatal swine is found-
Wond'rous to tell!-She lay along the ground:
Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung;
She white herself, and white her thirty young.
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