But struck with horror, left the Thracian shore,
Stain’d with the blood of murder’d Polydore.
The Delian isle receives the banish’d train,
Driven by kind gales, and favour’d by the main.
Here pious Anius, priest and monarch, reign’d,
And either charge with equal care sustain’d;
His subjects ruled, to Phoebus homage paid,
His god obeying, and by those obey’d.
The priest displays his hospitable gate,
And shows the riches of his church and state;
The sacred shrubs, which eased Latona’s pain,
The palm, and olive, and the votive fane.
Here grateful flames with fuming incense fed,
And mingled wine ambrosial odours shed;
Of slaughter’d steers the crackling entrails burn’d;
And then the strangers to the court return’d.
On beds of tap’stry placed aloft, they dine
With Ceres’ gift, and flowing bowls of wine;
When thus Anchises spoke, amid the feast:
“Say, mitred monarch, Phoebus’ chosen priest,
Or (ere from Troy by cruel fate expell’d)
When first mine eyes these sacred walls beheld,
A son, and twice two daughters crown’d thy bliss?
Or errs my memory, and I judge amiss?”
The royal prophet shook his hoary head,
With snowy fillets bound, and sighing, said:
“Thy memory errs not, prince; thou saw’st me then
The happy father of so large a train:
Behold me now, (such turns of chance befall
The race of man!) almost bereft of all.
For ah! what comfort can my son bestow,
What help afford, to mitigate my wo!
While far from hence, in Andros’ isle he reigns,
(From him so named,) and there my place sustains.
Him Delius prescience gave; the twice-born god
A boon more wondrous on the maids bestow’d.
Whate’er they touch’d, he gave them to transmute,
(A gift past credit, and above their suit,)
To Ceres, Bacchus, and Minerva’s fruit.
How great their value, and how rich their use,
Whose only touch such treasures could produce!
“The dire destroyer of the Trojan reign,
Fierce Agamemnon, such a prize to gain,
(A proof we also were design’d by fate
To feel the tempest that o’erturn’d your state,)
With force superior, and a ruffian crew,
From these weak arms the helpless virgins drew;
And sternly bade them use the grant divine,
To keep the fleet in corn, in oil, and wine.
Each, as they could, escaped: two strove to gain
Euboea’s isle, and two their brother’s reign.
The soldier follows, and demands the dames;
If held by force, immediate war proclaims.
Fear conquer’d nature in their brother’s mind,
And gave them up to punishment assign’d.
Forgive the deed; nor Hector’s arm was there,
Nor thine, Aeneas, to maintain the war;
Whose only force upheld your Ilium’s towers,
For ten long years against the Grecian powers.
Prepared to bind their captive arms in bands,
To heaven they rear’d their yet unfetter’d hands,
‘Help, Bacchus, author of the gift,’ they pray’d;
The gift’s great author gave immediate aid;
If such destruction of the human frame,
By ways so wondrous, may deserve the name;
Nor could I hear, nor can I now relate
Exact the manner of their alter’d state;
But this in general of my loss I knew,
Transform’d to doves, on milky plumes they flew,
Such as on Ida’s mount thy consort’s chariot drew.”
With such discourse they entertain’d the feast;
Then rose from table, and withdrew to rest.
The following morn, ere Sol was seen to shine,
The inquiring Trojans sought the sacred shrine;
The mystic power commands them to explore
Their ancient mother, and a kindred shore.
Attending to the sea, the generous prince
Dismiss’d his guests with rich munificence,
In old Anchises’ hand a sceptre placed,
A vest and quiver young Ascanius graced,
His sire a cup; which from the Aonian coast,
Ismenian Therses sent his royal host.
Alcon of Myle made what Therses sent,
And carved thereon this ample argument.
A town with seven distinguish’d gates was shown,
Which spoke its name, and made the city known;
Before it, piles and tombs, and rising flames,
The rites of death, and choirs of mourning dames
Who bared their breasts, and gave their hair to flow,
The signs of grief, and marks of public wo.
Their fountains dried, the weeping Naiads mourn’d,
The trees stood bare, with searing cankers burn’d,
No herbage clothed the ground, a ragged flock
Of goats half famish’d lick’d the naked rock
Of manly courage, and with mind serene,
Orion’s daughters in the town were seen;
One heav’d her chest to meet the lifted knife,
One plunged the poniard through the seat of life,
Their country’s victims; mourns the rescued state,
The bodies burns, and celebrates their fate.
To save the failure of the illustrious line,
From the pale ashes rose, of form divine,
Two generous youths; these, fame Coronae calls,
Who join the pomp, and mourn their mother’s falls.
These burnish’d figures form’d of antique mould,
Shone on the brass, with rising sculpture bold;
A wreath of gilt acanthus round the brim was roll’d.
Nor less expense the Trojan gifts express’d;
A fuming censor for the royal priest,
A chalice, and a crown of princely cost,
With ruddy gold, and sparkling gems emboss’d.
Now hoisting sail, to Crete the Trojans stood,
Themselves remembering sprung from Teucer’s blood;
But heaven forbids, and pestilential Jove,
From noxious skies the wandering navy drove.
Her hundred cities left, from Crete they bore,
And sought the destined land, Ausonia’s shore;
But toss’d by storms at either Strophas lay,
Till scared by harpies from the faithless bay.
Then passing onward with a prosperous wind,
Left sly Uylsses’ spacious realms behind;
Ambracia’s state, in former ages known
The strife of gods, the judge transform’d to stone
They saw; for Actian Phoebus since renown’d,
Who Caesar’s arms with naval conquest crown’d;
Next pass’d Dodona, wont of old to boast
Her vocal forest; and Chaonia’s coast,
Where King Molossus’ sons on wings aspired,
And saw secure the harmless fuel fired.
Now to Phaeacia’s happy isle they came,
For fertile orchards known to early fame;
Epirus pass’d, they next beheld with joy
A second Ilium, and fictitious Troy;
Here Trojan Helenus the sceptre sway’d,
Who show’d their fate, and mystic truths display’d;
By him confirm’d, Sicilia’s isle they reach’d,
Whose sides to sea, three promontories stretch’d;
Pachynos to the stormy south is placed,
On Lilybaeum blows the gentle west,
Peloro’s cliffs the northern Bear survey,
Who rolls above, and dreads to touch the sea;
By this they steer, and favour’d by the tide,
Secure by night in Zancle’s harbour ride.
Here cruel Sylla gains the rocky shore,
And there the waves of loud Charybdis roar;
This sucks, and vomits ships, and bodies drown’d,
And ravenous dogs the womb of that surround;
In face a virgin, and (if aught be true
By bards recorded) once a virgin too.
A train of youths in vain desired her bed,
By sea nymphs loved, to nymphs of seas she fled;
The maid
