Studies in the Poetry of Italy, I. Roman Part 16

Miller.

She works herself up to a frenzy, and as she finishes she turns to leave him with queenly scorn, staggers, and falls. The servants carry her from the scene, leaving aeneas in agony of soul, struggling between love and duty. Meanwhile the Trojan preparations go on with feverish haste. The ships are launched, hurried final preparations made, and all is now ready for departure. Dido sends her sister to aeneas with one last appeal, but all in vain. No tears or prayers can move him now.

The queen resolves on death. She has a huge pyre built within her palace court under the pretense of magic rites which shall free her from her unhappy love. The Trojans spend the night sleeping on their oars; the queen, in sleepless torment. As the dawn begins to brighten, the sailors are heard singing in the distance as they joyfully hoist their sails.

Dido rushes to her window and beholds the fleet just putting out from sh.o.r.e. She cries aloud in impotent frenzy.

Ye G.o.ds! and shall he go and mock our royal power?

Why not to arms, and send our forces in pursuit, And bid them hurry down the vessels from the sh.o.r.e?

Ho there, my men, quick, fetch the torches, seize your arms, And man the oars!--What am I saying? where am I?

What madness turns my brain? O most unhappy queen, Is it thus thy evil deeds are coming back to thee?

Such fate was just when thou didst yield thy scepter up.-- Lo, _there's_ the fealty of him who, rumor says, His country's G.o.ds with him in all his wandering bears, And on his shoulders bore his sire from burning Troy!

Why could I not have torn his body limb from limb, And strewed his members on the deep? and slain his friends, His son Aschanius, and served his mangled limbs To grace his father's feast?--Such conflict might have had A doubtful issue.--Grant it might, but whom had I, Foredoomed to death, to fear? I might have fired his camp, His ships, and wrapped in common ruin father, son, And all the race, and given myself to crown the doom Of all.--O Sun, who with thy shining rays dost see All mortal deeds; O Juno, who dost know and thus Canst judge the grievous cares of wedlock; thou whom wild And shrieking women worship through the dusky streets, O Hecate; and ye avenging Furies--ye, The G.o.ds of failing Dido, come and bend your power To these my woes and hear my prayer. If yonder wretch Must enter port and reach his land decreed by fate, If thus the laws of Jove ordain, this order holds; But, torn in war, a hardy people's foeman, far From friends and young Iulus' arms, may he be forced To seek a Grecian stranger's aid, and may he see The death of many whom he loves. And when at last A meager peace on doubtful terms he has secured, May he no pleasure find in kingdom or in life; But may he fall untimely, and unburied lie Upon some solitary strand. This, this I pray, And with my latest breath this final wish proclaim.

Then, O my Tyrians, with a bitter hate pursue The whole accursed race, and send this to my shade As welcome tribute. Let there be no amity Between our peoples. Rise thou from my bones, O some avenger, who with deadly sword and brand Shall scathe the Trojan exiles, now, in time to come, Whenever chance and strength shall favor. Be our sh.o.r.es To sh.o.r.es opposed, our waves to waves, and arms to arms, Eternal, deadly foes through all posterity.

Miller.

With this prophetic curse, to be fulfilled centuries hence, on the b.l.o.o.d.y fields of the Trebia, Trasumenus, and of Cannae, she s.n.a.t.c.hes up aeneas' sword, rushes out of the room, and mounts the pyre which she has prepared. Here have been placed all the objects which her Trojan lover has left behind. Pa.s.sionately kissing these and pressing them to her breast, she utters her last words.

Sweet pledges of my lord, while fate and G.o.d allowed, Accept this soul of mine, and free me from my cares.

For I have lived and run the course that Fortune set; And now my stately soul to Hades shall descend.

A n.o.ble city have I built; my husband's death Have I avenged, and on my brother's head my wrath Inflicted. Happy, ah too happy, had the keels Of Troy ne'er touched my sh.o.r.es!--And shall I perish thus?-- But let me perish. Thus, oh thus, 'tis sweet to seek The land of shadows.--May the heartless Trojan see, As on he fares across the deep, my blazing pyre, And bear with him the gloomy omens of my death.

Miller.

So saying, she falls upon the sword and perishes. The report of the queen's tragic death

runs wild through the convulsed city. With wailing and groaning, and screams of women, the palace rings; the sky resounds with mighty cries and beating of b.r.e.a.s.t.s--even as if the foe were to burst the gates and topple down Carthage or ancient Tyre, and the infuriate flame were leaping from roof to roof among the dwellings of men and G.o.ds.

Conington.

With the southern sky murky with the smoke and lurid with the glare of Dido's funeral pyre, aeneas sails away with sad forebodings, and comes again to Sicily. By chance this return to Sicily has fallen upon the anniversary of Anchises' death. aeneas therefore determines to hold a solemn festival in honor of his father, which he celebrates with the accustomed funeral games.

While these games are in progress, by the machinations of Juno, the Trojan women, weary of their long wanderings, attempt to burn the fleet.

But the vessels are saved, with the loss of four, by the miraculous intervention of Jupiter. aeneas thereupon is advised by Nautes, a Trojan prince, to build a town here in Sicily, and to leave behind all those who have grown weak or out of sympathy with his great enterprise.

This advice is ratified by the shade of Anchises, who gives aeneas further direction for his way.

My son, more dear, while life remained, E'en than that life to me, My son, long exercised and trained In Ilium's destiny, My errand is from Jove the sire, Who saved your vessels from the fire, And sent at last from heaven above The wished-for token of his love.

Hear and obey the counsel sage Bestowed by Nautes' reverend age: Picked youths, the bravest of the brave, Be these your comrades o'er the wave, For haughty are the tribes and rude That Latium has to be subdued.

But ere you yet confront the foe, First seek the halls of Dis below, Pa.s.s deep Avernus' vale, and meet Your father in his own retreat.

Not Tartarus' prison-house of crime Detains me, nor the mournful shades: My home is in the Elysian clime, With righteous souls, 'mid happy glades.

The virgin Sibyl with the gore Of sable sheep shall ope the door; Then shall you learn your future line, And what the walls the Fates a.s.sign.

And now farewell: dew-sprinkled Night Has scaled Olympus' topmost height: I catch their panting breath from far, The steeds of morning's cruel star.

Conington.

Moved by this vision, aeneas builds a town for the dispirited members of his band; and consigning these to King Acestes, sets his face once more toward Italy. This time, by Venus' aid, he reaches the Italian port of c.u.mae, with no misadventure except the loss of his faithful pilot, Palinurus.

Once more on land, the Trojans joyfully scour the woods, seek out fresh springs of water, and collect fuel for their fires. aeneas, however, turns his steps to the temple of Apollo upon a neighboring height, and prays the guidance of the G.o.d upon his further way. But most of all it is upon the hero's heart to visit his father in the underworld according to the mandate of his father's shade in Sicily. At the advice of the Sibyl who presides over the temple of Apollo, aeneas performs the necessary rites preliminary to this journey, and entering the dread cave near Lake Avernus, they take their gloomy way below.

Obscure they went thro' dreary shades, that led Along the waste dominions of the dead.

Thus wander travelers in wood by night, By the moon's doubtful and malignant light, When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies, And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.

Dryden.

They reach at last the gates of Hades, where hover the dreadful shapes of Cares, Disease and Death, Want, Famine, Toil and Strife. Through these they fare, and stand upon the sedgy bank of the river of death.

They see approaching them across the stream the old boatman Charon, who in his frail skiff ferries souls across the water.

A sordid G.o.d: down from his h.o.a.ry chin A length of beard descends, uncomb'd, unclean: His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire; A girdle foul with grease binds his obscene attire.

He spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers; The freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.

He looked in years; yet in his years were seen A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

Dryden.

The unsubstantial shades throng down to Charon's boat, where some are accepted for pa.s.sage, and some rejected. aeneas in wonder turns to his guide for an explanation of this. She replies:

Son of Anchises! offspring of the G.o.ds!

(The Sibyl said) you see the Stygian floods, The sacred streams, which heav'n's imperial state Attests in oaths, and fears to violate.

The ghosts rejected are th' unhappy crew Depriv'd of sepulchres and fun'ral due: The boatman, Charon: those, the buried host, He ferries over to the farther coast; Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves With such whose bones are not compos'd in graves.

A hundred years they wander on the sh.o.r.e; At length, their penance done, are wafted o'er.

Dryden.

aeneas and his guide now present themselves for pa.s.sage, but the old boatman refuses his boat to mortal bodies, until he is appeased by the Sibyl. Grim Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the farther bank of the stream and blocks their onward way, is next appeased. And on they go, past where the cries of wailing infants fill their ears; where Minos sits in judgment on the shades and a.s.signs to each his place of punishment; past the abode of suicides, who rushed so rashly out of life, but now sigh vainly for the life which they threw away; past the Mourning Fields, dark groves where wander those who died of love. Here aeneas meets the shade of Dido, and learns what he had only feared before. With tears of love and pity he approaches and addresses her; but she, in indignant silence, turns away.

They reach the fields where souls of slain warriors dwell, still handling their shadowy arms and ghostly chariots. With empty, voiceless shouts the Trojan dead greet their hero, in wonder that he comes still living among them, while the Grecian shades flee gibbering away.

Still on the Sibyl leads her charge, and pausing before the horrid gates of Tartarus, the abode of lost souls, they listen to the dreadful sounds within, "the groans of ghosts, the pains of sounding lashes and of dragging chains." Standing before the gates, aeneas is told of the suffering which these must undergo whose souls, by reason of impious lives on earth, are past all reach of cure. What are the crimes that brought them here? What does Vergil regard as unpardonable sins?

They, who brothers' better claim disown, Expel their parents, and usurp the throne; Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold, Sit brooding on unprofitable gold; Who dare not give, and e'en refuse to lend, To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend-- Vast is the throng of these; nor less the train Of l.u.s.tful youths, for foul adult'ry slain-- Hosts of deserters, who their honor sold, And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold; All these within the dungeon's depth remain, Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.

To tyrants, others have their countries sold, Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold; Some have old laws repeal'd, new statutes made, Not as the people pleas'd, but as they paid.

With incest some their daughters' bed profan'd.

All dar'd th' worst of ills, and what they dar'd, attain'd.

Dryden.

As they turn away from this dread place, a tortured voice sounds after them:

Learn righteousness, and dread th' avenging deities.

Far off from here they reach the abode of the blessed--the Elysian Fields,

Where long extended plains of pleasure lay.

The verdant fields with those of heav'n may vie, With ether vested, and a purple sky-- The blissful seats of happy souls below: Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know.

There airy limbs in sports they exercise, And on the green contend the wrestlers' prize.

Some, in heroic verse, divinely sing; Others in artful measures lead the ring.

Here patriots live, who, for their country's good, In fighting fields were prodigal of blood; Priests of unblemish'd lives here make abode, And poets worthy their inspiring G.o.d; And searching wits of more mechanic parts, Who grac'd their age with new-invented arts; Those who to worth their bounty did extend, And those who knew that bounty to commend.

The heads of these, with holy fillets bound, And all their temples were with garlands crown'd.