tyrant's fierceness he beguiles,And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,
And with superior greatness smiles.
Not the rough whirlwind, that deforms
Adria's black gulf, and vexes it with storms,
The stubborn virtue of his soul can move;
Not the red arm of angry Jove,
That flings the thunder from the sky,
And gives it rage to roar, and strength to fly.
Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
In ruin and confusion hurled,
He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,
And stand secure amidst a falling world.
Such were the godlike arts that led
Bright Pollux to the blest abodes;
Such did for great Alcides plead,
And gained a place among the gods;
Where now Augustus, mixed with heroes, lies,
And to his lips the nectar bowl applies:
His ruddy lips the purple tincture show,
And with immortal strains divinely glow.
By arts like these did young Lyæus11 rise:
His tigers drew him to the skies,
Wild from the desert and unbroke:
In vain they foamed, in vain they stared,
In vain their eyes with fury glared;
He tamed them to the lash, and bent them to the yoke.
Such were the paths that Rome's great founder trod,
When in a whirlwind snatched on high,
He shook off dull mortality,
And lost the monarch in the god.
Bright Juno then her awful silence broke,
And thus the assembled deities bespoke.
'Troy,' says the goddess, 'perjured Troy has felt
The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt;
The towering pile, and soft abodes,
Walled by the hand of servile gods,
Now spreads its ruins all around,
And lies inglorious on the ground.
An umpire, partial and unjust,
And a lewd woman's impious lust,
Lay heavy on her head, and sunk her to the dust.
Since false Laomedon's tyrannic sway,
That durst defraud the immortals of their pay,
Her guardian gods renounced their patronage,
Nor would the fierce invading foe repel;
To my resentment, and Minerva's rage,
The guilty king and the whole people fell.
And now the long protracted wars are o'er,
The soft adulterer shines no more;
No more does Hector's force the Trojans shield,
That drove whole armies back, and singly cleared the field.
My vengeance sated, I at length resign
To Mars his offspring of the Trojan line:
Advanced to godhead let him rise,
And take his station in the skies;
There entertain his ravished sight
With scenes of glory, fields of light;
Quaff with the gods immortal wine,
And see adoring nations crowd his shrine:
The thin remains of Troy's afflicted host,
In distant realms may seats unenvied find,
And flourish on a foreign coast;
But far be Rome from Troy disjoined,
Removed by seas from the disastrous shore;
May endless billows rise between, and storms unnumbered roar.
Still let the cursed, detested place,
Where Priam lies, and Priam's faithless race,
Be cover'd o'er with weeds, and hid in grass.
There let the wanton flocks unguarded stray;
Or, while the lonely shepherd sings,
Amidst the mighty ruins play,
And frisk upon the tombs of kings.
May tigers there, and all the savage kind,
Sad, solitary haunts and silent deserts find;
In gloomy vaults, and nooks of palaces,
May the unmolested lioness
Her brinded whelps securely lay,
Or couched, in dreadful slumbers waste the day.
While Troy in heaps of ruins lies,
Rome and the Roman Capitol shall rise;
The illustrious exiles unconfined
Shall triumph far and near, and rule mankind.
In vain the sea's intruding tide
Europe from Afric shall divide,
And part the severed world in two:
Through Afric's sands their triumphs they shall spread,
And the long train of victories pursue
To Nile's yet undiscovered head.
Riches the hardy soldier shall despise,
And look on gold with undesiring eyes,
Nor the disbowelled earth explore
In search of the forbidden ore;
Those glittering ills concealed within the mine,
Shall lie untouched, and innocently shine.
To the last bounds that nature sets,
The piercing colds and sultry heats,
The godlike race shall spread their arms;
Now fill the polar circle with alarms,
Till storms and tempests their pursuits confine;
Now sweat for conquest underneath the line.
This only law the victor shall restrain,
On these conditions shall he reign;
If none his guilty hand employ
To build again a second Troy,
If none the rash design pursue,
Nor tempt the vengeance of the gods anew.
A curse there cleaves to the devoted place,
That shall the new foundations raze:
Greece shall in mutual leagues conspire
To storm the rising town with fire,
And at
'Lyæus:' Bacchus.
