Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
When in this vain essay of words she sees Latinus fixed against her, and
the serpent's maddening poison is sunk deep in her vitals and runs
through and through her, then indeed, stung by infinite horrors, hapless
and frenzied, she rages wildly through the endless city. As whilome a
top flying under the twisted whipcord, which boys busy at their play
drive circling wide round an empty hall, runs before the lash and spins
in wide gyrations; the witless ungrown band hang wondering over it and
admire the whirling boxwood; the strokes lend it life: with pace no
slacker is she borne midway through towns and valiant nations. Nay, she
flies into the woodland under feigned Bacchic influence, assumes a
greater guilt, arouses a greater frenzy, and hides her daughter in the
mountain coverts to rob the Teucrians of their bridal and stay the
marriage torches. 'Hail, Bacchus!' she shrieks and clamours; 'thou only
art worthy of the maiden; for to thee she takes up the lissom wands,
thee she circles in the dance, to thee she trains and consecrates her
tresses.' Rumour flies abroad; and the matrons, their breasts kindled by
the furies, run all at once [393-426]with a single ardour to seek out
strange dwellings. They have left their homes empty, they throw neck and
hair free to the winds; while others fill the air with ringing cries,
girt about with fawnskins, and carrying spears of vine. Amid them the
infuriate queen holds her blazing pine-torch on high, and chants the
wedding of Turnus and her daughter; and rolling her bloodshot gaze,
cries sudden and harsh: 'Hear, O mothers of Latium, wheresoever you be;
if unhappy Amata hath yet any favour in your affection, if care for a
mother's right pierces you, untie the chaplets from your hair, begin the
orgies with me.' Thus, amid woods and wild beasts' solitary places, does
Allecto goad the queen with the encircling Bacchic madness.
When their frenzy seemed heightened and her first task complete, the
purpose and all the house of Latinus turned upside down, the dolorous
goddess flies on thence, soaring on dusky wing, to the walls of the
gallant Rutulian, the city which Danaë, they say, borne down on the
boisterous south wind, built and planted with Acrision's people. The
place was called Ardea once of old; and still Ardea remains a mighty
name; but its fortune is no more. Here in his high house Turnus now took
rest in the black midnight. Allecto puts off her grim feature and the
body of a Fury; she transforms her face to an aged woman's, and furrows
her brow with ugly wrinkles; she puts on white tresses chaplet-bound,
and entwines them with an olive spray; she becomes aged Calybe,
priestess of Juno's temple, and presents herself before his eyes,
uttering thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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