The Aenid by Virgil

An excerpt from Book VIII

THE EMBASSAGE TO EVANDER

When Turnus ran up the flag of war on the towers of Laurentum, and the trumpets blared
with harsh music, when he spurred his fiery steeds and clashed his armour, straightway
men's hearts are in tumult; all Latium at once flutters in banded uprisal, and her warriors
rage furiously. Their chiefs, Messapus, and Ufens, and Mezentius, scorner of the gods,
begin to enrol forces on all sides, and dispeople the wide fields of husbandmen. Venulus
too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede to seek succour, to instruct him that Teucrians
set foot in Latium; that Aeneas in his fleet invades them with the vanquished gods of his
home, and proclaims himself the King summoned of fate; that many tribes join the
Dardanian, and his name swells high in Latium. What he will rear on these foundations,
what issue of battle he desires, if Fortune attend him, lies clearer to his own sight than to
King Turnus or King Latinus.

Thus was it in Latium. And the hero of Laomedon's blood, seeing it all, tosses on a
heavy surge of care, and throws his mind rapidly this way and that, and turns it on all
hands in swift change of thought: even as when the quivering light of water brimming in
brass, struck back [Pg 172][23-56]from the sunlight or the moon's glittering reflection,
flickers abroad over all the room, and now mounts aloft and strikes the high panelled
roof. Night fell, and over all lands weary creatures were fast in deep slumber, the race of
fowl and of cattle; when lord Aeneas, sick at heart of the dismal warfare, stretched him
on the river bank under the cope of the cold sky, and let sleep, though late, overspread
his limbs. To him the very god of the ground, the pleasant Tiber stream, seemed to raise
his aged form among the poplar boughs; thin lawn veiled him with its gray covering, and
shadowy reeds hid his hair. Thereon he addressed him thus, and with these words
allayed his distresses:
'O born of the family of the gods, thou who bearest back our Trojan city from hostile
hands, and keepest Troy towers in eternal life; O long looked for on Laurentine ground
and Latin fields! here is thine assured home, thine home's assured gods. Draw not thou
back, nor be alarmed by menace of war. All the anger and wrath of the gods is passed
away . . . And even now for thine assurance, that thou think not this the idle fashioning
of sleep, a great sow shall be found lying under the oaks on the shore, with her new-born
litter of thirty head: white she couches on the ground, and the brood about her teats is
white. By this token in thirty revolving years shall Ascanius found a city, Alba of bright
name. My prophecy is sure. Now hearken, and I will briefly instruct thee how thou
mayest unravel and overcome thy present task. An Arcadian people sprung of Pallas,
following in their king Evander's company beneath his banners, have chosen a place in
these coasts, and set a city on the hills, called Pallanteum after Pallas their forefather.
These wage perpetual war with the Latin race; these do thou take to thy camp's alliance,
and join with them in league. Myself I [Pg 173][57-89]will lead thee by my banks and
straight along my stream, that thou mayest oar thy way upward against the river. Up and
arise, goddess-born, and even with the setting stars address thy prayers to Juno as is
meet, and vanquish her wrath and menaces with humble vows. To me thou shalt pay a
conqueror's sacrifice. I am he whom thou seest washing the banks with full flood and
severing the rich tilth, glassy Tiber, best beloved by heaven of rivers. Here is my stately
home; my fountain-head is among high cities.'

Thus spoke the River, and sank in the depth of the pool: night and sleep left Aeneas. He
arises, and, looking towards the radiant sky of the sunrising, holds up water from the
river in fitly-hollowed palms, and pours to heaven these accents:
'Nymphs, Laurentine Nymphs, from whom is the generation of rivers, and thou, O father
Tiber, with thine holy flood, receive Aeneas and deign to save him out of danger. What
pool soever holds thy source, who pitiest our discomforts, from whatsoever soil thou
dost spring excellent in beauty, ever shall my worship, ever my gifts frequent thee, the
hornèd river lord of Hesperian waters. Ah, be thou only by me, and graciously confirm
thy will.' So speaks he, and chooses two galleys from his fleet, and mans them with
rowers, and withal equips a crew with arms.