Or turn a thought, until we at the hill
Of ancient Ceres, and her hallowed seat,
Arrived. Here at the last all mustered, she
Alone was wanting, and her mates, and son,
And spouse escaped. Whom both of men and gods
Did I not in my frenzy chide? Or what
More bitter in the city's overthrow
Did I behold? Ascanius, and my sire
Anchises, and the Trojan gods do I intrust
Unto my mates, and in a winding glen
Secrete them: I myself the city seek
Again, and am begirt in gleaming arms.
I am resolved all hazards to renew,
And through the whole of Troja to return,
And once more to expose my head to risks.
First the walls and dim thresholds of the gate,
Whence I had issued forth, I seek again,
And back my footsteps trace, marked through the gloom, And with my eye survey them. Dread all round,
At once the very stillness frights my soul.
Thence home, if she by chance her foot, if she by chance Had [thither] moved, do I betake myself.
The Danai had rushed within, and they
Of all the dome were masters. In a trice
The glutton fire unto the topmost roofs
Is vollied by the wind; surmount them flames;
if he had said: "I did not turn my eyes back to see if Creusa were behind, who was really missing, though I did not know it at the time." All the translators, so far as I know, fall into what appears to me to be a weakness, by their taking respicio in its tropical meaning. Freund, however, takes what I am persuaded is the right view. The poet means Æneas to say: "I never turned a look, nor a thought, behind upon my missing wife."
The tide raves to the breezes. I advance,
And Priam's palace and the citadel
and see again. And now, within
The lonely colonnades, in Juno's fane,
Choice sentries, Phoenix and Ulysses cursed,
The spoil were guarding. Hither from all sides.
Troy's treasure, rifled from the burning shrines,
And boards of gods, and massive bowls of gold,
And plundered gear, are heaped together. Boys,
And quaking dames in long array stand round.
Yea, I, e'en venturing to fling my words
Throughout the gloom, with outcry filled the streets,
And in my woe redoubling bootlessly,
Creusa o'er and o'er again I called.
To me in search, and storming without end
Among the city buildings, the hapless shade
And phantom of Creusa's self appeared
Before my eyes, and larger than the life her ghost.
Aghast was I, and stood my hair on end,
And voice clave to my jaws. Then thus doth she
Accost me, and anxieties removes
By accents these: 'Why does it thee rejoice
So much to madding sorrow to give way,
O my delightsome consort? These [events]
Without the will of gods come not to pass;
Line 1085. Or, more literally:
Creusa both again and again I called.
"All which when he unto the end had heard,
Like to a weake faint-hearted man he fared
Through great astonishment of that strange sight;
And, with long locks up-standing stifly, stared
Like one adawed with some dreadfull spright."
Nor is 't permitted thee to carry off
Creusa as thy comrade, or doth he,
The lord of high Olympus, [this] allow.
Protracted wanderings [are in store] for thee,
And ocean's wasteful surface must be ploughed;
And thou shalt at th' Hesperian land arrive,
Where Lydian Tiber through the wealthy fields.
Of heroes with a gentle current runs.
There glad estate, and realm, and queenly bride
Are gained for thee: drive away thy tears
For thy beloved Creusa. I shall not
The Myrmidons' or Dolopes' proud seats
Behold, or unto Grecian matrons go
To be a thrall,-a Dardan lady [I],
And of the goddess Venus daughter-in-law;
But me the mighty mother of the gods
Stays in these regions. And now fare thee well,
And guard affection for our common son.'
These words when she had uttered, me in tears,
And longing many a thought to speak, she left,
And back withdrew into the filmy air.
Three times I there essayed to fling my arms
Line 1110. Cleopatra felt as Creusa:
"Know, sir, that I
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court;
Nor once be chastised with the sober eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
Of censuring Rome?
Be gentle grave to me!
Rather a ditch in Egypt
Rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
My country's high pyramidès my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains!"
Shakspeare, Ant, and Cleop. v. 2.
About her neck; three times in vain engrasped,
My hands the phantom-form escaped, a match
For wanton winds, and likest wingy sleep.
Thus I at length my comrades, night far spent,
Revisit. And I here in wonder find
A mighty number of companions new
Had tided in, both dames and men,—a horde,
Mustered for banishment, a piteous rout.
From every side they flocked, in mind and means
Prepared [to go] into whatever lands
I pleased away to lead them o'er the deep.
And now upon the heights of Ida's cope
The star of morn was rising, and the day
Was ushering in; the Greeks, too, occupied
The leaguered thresholds of the gate, nor hope
Of aid was any granted: I gave way,
And with my sire upraised the mountains sought."
Line 1119. So Savage, in the Wanderer, canto ii. The Hermit, on the sight of the shadow of his wife Olympia, says:
"Still thus I urge (for still the shadowy bliss
Shuns the warm grasp, nor yields the tender kiss)
Oh, fly not! fade not! Listen to Love's call;
She lives!-no more I'm man !-I'm spirit all!
Then let me snatch thee!-press thee !-take me whole!
Oh, close!-yet closer! closer to my soul !
Twice round her waist my eager arms entwined,
And, twice deceived, my frenzy clasp'd the wind!"
"AFTER it seemed to heavenly powers meet To o'erturn the realm of Asia, and the race Of Priam, undeserving [such a fate],
And fell haught Ilium, and all from the ground
Smokes Neptune's Troy,-wide-distant banishment
And lonesome lands are we enforced to seek
By revelations of the gods, and we
navy underneath Antandros' self,
And Phrygian Ida's mountains build, in doubt,
Whither fates bear us, where to settle down
may be deigned; and muster we our men.
Scarce had the dawning summer-tide begun,
When sire Anchises to resign the sails
Unto the fates commanded; when the shores
And havens of my native land in tears
I leave, the plains, too, where [once] Troja stood.
I am borne a banished man upon the deep
With mates, and son, Penates, and great gods.
"Troy, that art now nought but an idle name,
And in thine ashes buried low dost lie,
Though whilome far much greater then thy fame,
Before that angry gods and cruell skie
Upon thee heapt a direful destinie."
Spenser, Faerie Queene, iii. 9, 33.
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