And Vulcan on the seas exerts his attribute of fire.
This when the mother of the gods beheld,
Her towery crown she shook, and stood reveal’d;
Her brindled lions rein’d, unveil’d her head,
And hovering o’er her favour’d fleet, she said:
“Cease, Turnus, and the heavenly powers respect,
Nor dare to violate what I protect.
These galleys once fair trees on Ida stood,
And gave their shade to each descending god.
Nor shall consume; irrevocable fate
Allots their being no determined date.”
Straight peals of thunder heaven’s high arches rend
The hailstones leap, the showers in spouts descend.
The winds with widen’d throats the signal give;
The cables break, the smoking vessels drive.
Now, wondrous, as they beat the foaming flood,
The timbers soften into flesh and blood;
The yards and oars new arms and legs design;
A trunk the hull; the slender keel a spine:
The prow a female face; and by degrees
The gallies rise green daughters of the seas.
Sometimes on coral beds they sit in state,
Or wanton on the waves they fear’d of late.
The barks that beat the seas are still their care,
Themselves remembering what of late they were;
To save a Trojan sail in throngs they press,
But smile to see Alcinous in distress.
Unable were those wonders to deter
The Latians from their unsuccessful war.
Both sides for doubtful victory contend;
And on their courage and their gods depend.
Nor bright Lavinia, nor Latinus’ crown,
Warm their great soul to war, like fair renown.
Venus at last beholds her godlike son
Triumphant, and the field of battle won;
Brave Turnus slain, strong Ardea but a name,
And buried in fierce deluges of flame.
Her towers, that boasted once a sovereign sway,
The fate of fancied grandeur now betray.
A famish’d heron from the ashes springs,
And beats the ruin with disastrous wings.
Calamities of towns distress’d she feigns,
And oft, with woeful shrieks, of war complains.
Deification of Aeneas
The prayers of Venus prevail, and Aeneas is admitted into the number of the gods, while his descendants sway the sceptre of Latium.
Now had Aeneas, as ordain’d by fate,
Survived the period of Saturnia’s hate,
And, by a sure irrevocable doom,
Fix’d the immortal majesty of Rome,
Fit for the station of his kindred stars,
His mother goddess thus her suit prefers:
“Almighty arbiter, whose powerful nod
Shakes distant earth, and bows our own abode;
To thy great progeny indulgent be,
And rank the goddess-born a deity.
Already has he view’d, with mortal eyes,
Thy brother’s kingdoms of the nether skies.”
Forthwith a conclave of the godhead meets,
Where Juno in the shining senate sits.
Remorse for past revenge the goddess feels;
Then thundering Jove the almighty mandate seals;
Allots the prince of his celestial line
An apotheosis, and rites divine.
The crystal mansions echo with applause,
And, with her Graces, love’s bright queen withdraws,
Shoots in a blaze of light along the skies,
And, born by turtles, to Laurentum flies:
Alights, where through the reeds Numicius strays,
And to the seas his watery tribute pays.
The god she supplicates to wash away
The parts more gross and subject to decay,
And cleanse the goddess-born from radical allay.
The horned flood with glad attention stands,
Then bids his streams obey their sire’s commands.
His better parts by lustral waves refined,
More pure, and nearer to ethereal mind,
With gums of fragrant scent the goddess strews,
And on his features breathes ambrosial dews.
Thus deified, new honours Rome decrees,
Shrines, festivals; and styles him Indiges.
Ascanius now the Latian sceptre sways;
The Alban nation, Sylvius, next obeys.
Then young Latinus; next an Alba came,
The grace and guardian of the Alban name.
Then Epitus; then gentle Capys reign’d;
Then Capetis the regal power sustain’d.
Next he who perish’d on the Tuscan flood,
And honour’d with his name the river god.
Now haughty Remulus began his reign,
Who fell by thunder he aspired to feign.
Meek Acrota succeeded to the crown;
From peace endeavouring, more than arms, renown,
To Aventinus well resign’d his throne.
The mount, on which he ruled, preserves his name,
And Procas wore the regal diadem.
Story of Vertumnus and Pomona
Vertumnus prosecutes his suit to the nymph Pomona in the disguise of an old woman.
A hamadryad flourish’d in these days,
Her name Pomona, from her woodland race.
In garden culture none could so excel,
Or form the pliant souls of plants so well;
Or to the fruit more generous flavours lend,
Or teach the trees with nobler loads to bend.
The nymph frequented not the flattering stream,
Nor meads, the subject of a virgin’s dream;
But to such joys her nursery did prefer,
Alone to attend her vegetable care.
A pruning hook she carried in her hand,
And taught the stragglers to obey command;
Lest the licentious, and unthrifty bough,
The too-indulgent parent should undo.
She shows, how stocks invite to their embrace
A graft, and naturalize a foreign race
To mend the savage teint; and in its stead
Adopt new nature, and a nobler breed.
Now hourly she observes her growing care,
And guards the nonage from the bleaker air:
Then opes her streaming sluices, to supply
With flowing draughts her thirsty family.
Long had she labour’d to continue free
From chains of love, and nuptial tyranny;
And in her orchard’s small extent immured,
Her vow’d virginity she still secured,
Oft would loose Pan, and all the brutal train
Of satyrs, tempt her innocence in vain.
Vertumnus too pursued the maid no less;
But with his rivals shared a like success.
To gain access a thousand ways he tries:
Oft, in the hind, the lover would disguise.
The heedless lout comes shambling on, and seems
Just sweating from the labour of his teams.
Then, from the harvest of the mimic swain,
Seems bending with a load of bearded grain.
Sometimes a dresser of the vine he feigns,
And lawless tendrils to their bounds restrains.
Sometimes his sword a soldier shows; his rod
An angler; still so various is the god.
Now, in a forehead cloth, some crone he seems,
A staff supplying the defect of limbs;
Admittance thus he gains; admires the store
Of fairest fruit; the fair possessor more;
Then greets her with a kiss: the unpractised dame
Admired a grandame kiss’d with such a flame.
Now, seated by her, he beholds a vine
Around an elm in amorous foldings twine.
“If that fair elm,” he cried, “alone should stand,
No grapes would glow with gold and tempt the hand;
Or if that vine without her elm should grow,
’Twould creep a poor neglected shrub below.
“Be then, fair nymph, by these examples led;
Nor shun, for fancied fears, the nuptial bed.
Not she for whom the Lapithites took arms,
Nor Sparta’s queen, could boast
