Chapter VIII: Part II: Hercules and Atlas (4)

Ajax took this award in high dudgeon, and, knowing himself the better man, affirmed that this judgment could have been procured only by fraud and corruption, and swore that he would be avenged of his crafty rival. He challenged his enemy to single combat, but Ulysses was too wary to risk his life against such a swordsman, and the chiefs who heard of the quarrel interfered, saying that Greek must not take the blood of Greek. Thus balked, Ajax raged more furiously, and swore that if Ulysses would not fight he would slay him in his tent.

So Ulysses went about in fear of his life, and he appealed to his patron goddess to defend him. Minerva heard his prayer, and promised her favorite warrior that he should suffer no harm. She kept her word by sending on Ajax a strong delusion, whereby in his frenzy he mistook beasts for men.

The Greeks found the herds and flocks that had been taken in raids, and were kept in pound as a common stock to feed the army, hacked and hewn in the night, as though a mountain lion had been ravaging them; and they suspected Ajax, whose strange behavior none could fail to notice, as the offender, but they had no certain proof, and Ulysses, the man of many wiles, was by common consent deputed to search into the matter.

So the next night he stole forth from the camp alone, and in the early light of dawn he espied a solitary figure hurrying over the plain, and he followed the trail like a bloodhound till it led him to the tent of Ajax.

He paused uncertain, for he dared not venture farther, and was about to return and report to the commanders what he had seen, when he heard a voice saying, "Ulysses, what dost thou here?" and he knew it could be none other than the voice of his own goddess Minerva.

He told her the case and craved her aid in his perplexity, and the goddess gently upbraided him. "Thou wert no coward soul, Ulysses, when I chose thee as my favored knight, and now dost thou fear a single unarmed man, and one by me bereft of his wits?" And Ulysses answered, "Goddess, I am no coward, but the bravest may quail before a raving madman." But Minerva replied, "Be of good heart, and trust as ever to me. Lo, I will show thee a sight whereon thou mayst glut thine eyes." Thereupon she opened the flap of the tent, and within stood Ajax, wild and haggard, his hands dripping with gore, and all around him were sheep and oxen, some beheaded, some ripped up, and some horribly mutilated--a very shambles. At the moment Ajax was belaboring a huge ram that he had strapped up to a pillar of the tent, and, as each blow of the double thong descended he shouted, "Take that, Ulysses; that's for thy knavery, that for thy villainy, that for thy lies, thou white-livered rogue." Ulysses could not but smile as he saw himself scourged and cursed in effigy, but he was touched by a thought of human infirmity and the ruin of a noble soul, and he prayed the goddess to avert from him such a calamity.

In the women's tent hard by sat Tecmessa, the captive wife of Ajax, weeping and wringing her hands. His tender love had made her forget her desolate home and slaughtered brethren, and she had borne him a son, the pride and joy of both parents. But ever since he had lost the prize for bravery she had noted a growing estrangement. He avoided her, meeting her advances with cold looks, and the night before, when she asked him why he was girding on his armor at that hour, he had answered her, "Silence, woman; women should be seen, not heard." And then he had gone forth and returned with these beeves and sheep that he was now hacking to pieces like a madman. Their boy she had sent away with his nurse to be out of harm's way, and she sat cowering in her tent.

As she sat, half dazed with grief and watching, she heard her name called. Trembling she arose and met her lord at the tent door. Again he called her, but now his voice was tender and low, and he gazed at her with a look of mingled pity and love. And her heart rejoiced, for she saw that his madness had passed, that her old Ajax was restored to her. "Tecmessa," he asked, "where is our boy?" And Tecmessa hastened and brought back their child Eurysaces. Ajax took him from his nurse's arms, and he kissed the innocent brow and spoke: "My boy, may thy lot in life be happier than thy father's; but in all else be like unto me, and thou shalt prove no base man." Then he passed with Tecmessa into her tent, and flung himself down on the bed and lay there as a sick man who has scarce recovered from a grievous illness. She would fain have ministered to him, but he refused all meat and drink, and lay for long hours holding her hand. Ever and anon he would ask, "Where is Teucer? Is not Teucer returned? I would fain speak with my brother."

As the sun was setting he rose from his bed and took his sword, telling his wife that he must leave her for a while, but would soon return. She, fearing another fit of madness, sought with tears to detain him, but he gently put her aside and told her what his errand was. He must needs go to the sea-baths, and with pure ablution wash away his stains and make him clean. And he gently unwound her clinging arms, closed her lips with a kiss, and went on his way.

When he reached the river, he drew his sword from the scabbard and planted it firm in earth. "Fatal blade," he cried, "once the sword of Hector, then a foeman's gift to his arch-enemy, a bane to each who owned thee; but to me, thy last master, a friend at need. I have had my day, and for me there is living none. My sword, go with me to the shades." Therewith he hurled himself upon the naked steel and gave up the ghost.

Fishermen dragging their nets at dawn found the body, and brought it back to camp. Teucer, warned by the seer Calchas that unless his brother could be kept within doors for that day some dread calamity awaited him, had hurried to warn and save him from his doom; but as he reached the tent he was met by the bearers bringing home his brother's corpse.

There was mourning in the Grecian camp. A great man had fallen that day; for his brief madness the gods alone were to blame; and his long years of service, his gallant deeds, his fearless courage, his noble generosity, were alone remembered. So they decreed for him a public funeral with all the pomp and ceremony that befitted a great chieftain.

Already they had begun to raise a huge funeral pile and to deck the sacrificial altar, when Menelaus, who shared with Agamemnon the chief command, rode up in hot haste to forbid the public burial. "No man," he declared, "who had defied his authority and done such injury to the common cause should be honored." But Ulysses with a soft answer turned away his wrath: "True, he hath sinned against thee, O king, and in life he hated me, but death is the great atoner. Honor the fearless knight. Let his ashes rest in peace."

THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS FROM TROY

BY F. STORR

Æneas, standing on the battlements of the palace, had beheld the heartrending scene of Troy's destruction, horror-stricken and unable to help. All his comrades were dead or had fled, and he alone was left. As he looked on Priam's bleeding corse the face of his own father Anchises, as old and as defenseless, flashed across his fancy, and he saw in vision his desolate home, his wife Creusa, and Iulus clinging to his mother's knees.

He stole out of the palace by the same covered way that had let him in, and was hurrying home when he passed the shrine of Vesta, and cowering behind the altar, by the glare of the conflagration that still raged, he espied Helen, the prime cause of all their woes. His soul burned with righteous indignation. "What," he cried to himself, "shall this cursed woman, the bane both of Greece and of Troy, shall she alone escape scot-free; shall she return to Greece a crowned queen with our captive sons and daughters in her train? No," he cried, as he drew his sword; "to slay a woman is no knightly deed, but men will approve me as the minister of God's vengeance."

But of a sudden, effulgent in the heavens like her own star, he beheld his goddess-mother, and she laid a hand on his outstretched arm in act to strike, and whispered in his ear: "My son, why this empty rage? Dost thou forget thy mother and all her care for thee and thine? Think of thine aged sire, thy loving wife, thy little son. But for me they had all perished by the sword and flames. 'Tis not Paris, 'tis not that Spartan woman who hath wrought this ruin, but the gods who were leagued against Troy. Lo, I will take the scales from thine eyes, and for a moment thou shalt behold as one of themselves the immortals at work. Look yonder, where walls and watch-towers are crashing down, as though upheaved by an earthquake, Neptune is up-prizing with his dread trident the walls that he helped to build. There at the Scæan gates stands Juno in full mail crying Havoc! and hounding on the laggard Greeks. Look backward at the citadel; above it towers Minerva, wrapt in a storm-cloud, and flashing her Gorgon shield. Nay more, on far Olympus (but this thou canst not see) the Almighty Father is heartening those gods who are banded for the ruin of Troy. Save thyself, my son, while yet there is time. Let adverse gods rage; I, thy mother, will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

The goddess vanished, and as by a flash of lightning he beheld for an instant the grim visages of the Powers of Darkness.

Under the tutelage of Venus, Æneas reached his home without adventure and found all safe, as she had promised. He was preparing for his flight to the neighboring hills when an unforeseen impediment arose. No persuasions would induce Anchises to accompany him. "Ye are young and lusty," cried his sire, "fly for your lives and leave me, a poor old man tottering on the brink of the grave. All I ask is that ye repeat over me the ritual for the dead. The Greeks, when they find me, will grant me sepulture."

No prayers or arguments could move the old man from his obstinate resolution, and Æneas, in desperation, was again girding on his armor, choosing to perish with wife and child in single-handed fight rather than desert his aged parent, when a sign from heaven was given that first amazed and then filled all hearts with joy. On the head of the child Iulus there appeared a tongue of fire that spread among his curly locks, and played round his smooth brow, crowning him like the aureole of a saint. In horror his mother sought to extinguish the flames, but the water she poured made them only burn the brighter. But Anchises knew the heavenly sign, and with uplifted palms he prayed that Jupiter would confirm his good will by some more certain augury. And straightway on the left (the lucky side) a clap of thunder was heard, and from the zenith there fell a meteor that left a long trail of light as it fell to earth on the pine-clad slopes of Mount Ida.

Then at last Anchises yielded, and Æneas, stooping down, lifted the old man on his shoulder. By his side, holding his right hand, was Iulus, bravely trying to keep pace with his father's long strides, and last came Creusa, with a train of household slaves. As trysting-place, in case they should get separated in the crowd and confusion, Æneas assigned to them a deserted shrine of Vesta, near to a solitary cypress tree which would serve them as a landmark. They were well on their way, and had escaped the worst perils, when Anchises cried out, "Hist! I hear the tramp of armed men, and see the glint of armor." And Æneas, who never before had quailed in the storm of battle, now trembled like an aspen leaf, and snatching up the boy he ran for his life, and never drew breath till he had reached the deserted shrine. Then he looked back, and to his horror Creusa was nowhere to be seen. Had she missed the road, or had she fainted on the way? He questioned his household who had by now arrived, but none had seen their mistress since they left the city. Again he donned his arms and rushed back by the way he had come. Not a trace of his wife could he find. He re-entered the city by the same gate, and rethreaded the same dark alleys. He sought his home, but it was now a mass of smoldering ruins. As a last desperate hope he sought the Royal Treasure House, if haply she might there have found a hiding-place, but at the entrance stood Phoenix and Ulysses, the captains told off to guard the loot. There lay, piled in a confused heap, all the wealth of Troy that the flames had not consumed--purple robes, coverlets and tapestries, armlets and anklets of wrought gold, jeweled drinking-bowls, and the sacred vessels from the temples.

Reckless of the risks he ran he shouted from street to street, "Creusa! Creusa!" when at last a familiar voice replied, and before him he saw, not, alas! Creusa, but her ghost, larger than human, gazing down on him with eyes of infinite pity. "Why," it whispered, "this wild grief? Nothing, dear lord, is here for tears. 'Twas not the will of heaven that I should share thy wanderings and toils. Be of good heart. In the far west, so fate ordains, where Tiber rolls his yellow tide, thou shalt found a new empire and espouse a princess of the land. Nor need'st thou pity my less fortunate lot. I have known all the joys of married bliss, and my body shall rest in the soil that gave me birth. No proud Greek will boast that he bears home in his captive train her who was the wife of Æneas, the daughter-in-law of Venus. And now, fare thee well. Forget not our sweet child, and her who bore him."

"Thrice he essayed with arms outstretched to clasp
Her shade, and thrice it slipped from his fond grasp,
Like frolic airs that o'er a still lake play,
Or dreams that vanish at the break of day."

ÆNEAS AND DIDO

BY V. C. TURNBULL

Hardly less renowned than the wanderings of crafty Ulysses, after the fall of Troy, are those of pious Æneas, the Trojan. Many were his adventures and heavy his losses, for he was pursued evermore by the hatred of Juno, who detested all Trojans, and but for the protecting care of his mother Venus he must have perished.

On the Sicilian shore he had lost his aged father, Anchises, and Æneas mourned his good old sire, whom he had carried on his shoulders from burning Troy.

Thence he set sail with his son Iulus to Italy. But when they had put forth to sea, Juno smote them with a terrible storm, so that Æneas lost all but seven ships of his fleet and not a few of his comrades perished. He himself, with his son Iulus and his friend Achates, was driven out of his course and carried to the shores of Libya. Here the Trojans disembarked and thankfully rested their brine-drenched limbs on the beach. And when they had feasted off the grain brought from their ships, and the venison procured for them by their captain's bow, Æneas, taking with him only Achates, set forth to survey this unexplored country.

On their way through a forest they met a fair maid in the garb of a huntress, and of her they inquired what land this might be and who dwelt therein. She told them they had come to the land and city of Carthage, over which ruled the Tyrian Queen Dido. She told them, moreover, that the Queen had once ruled in Tyre, the consort of Sichæus, a Phoenician prince, and that when her lord had been murdered by his cruel brother Pygmalion, she had fled to Libya, where even now she was rearing the stately city of Carthage. And she bade them seek the Queen and throw themselves on her protection. Æneas had gazed in wonder and admiration at the maiden, deeming her some nymph of Dian's train, and he was about, on bended knee, to give her thanks when she turned on him a parting glance. And lo! the goddess stood revealed, radiant in celestial beauty; and as he recognized his mother, she had vanished from his sight.

Cheered by this vision, Æneas and Achates pressed forward, and, that none might molest them, Venus wrapped them in a thick mist. Emerging from the forest they climbed a hill overlooking the city of Carthage, where skilled workmen were on all sides busied rearing stately buildings. In the midst of the city, with a flight of marble stairs and surrounded by a grove of trees, stood a temple to Juno, its gates of brass glittering in the morning sun. And Æneas, drawing near, marveled to find the walls of this temple painted with pictures of the Trojan War--aye, and himself he saw portrayed fighting against the Grecian leaders.

Whilst Æneas and Achates were still gazing, Queen Dido drew near with a great retinue of maidens and youths. She seated herself on a throne under the dome of the temple, for here it was her custom to deal justice and apportion work to her subjects, urging forward with cheerful words the building of her city. Among the first to appear before the Queen, Æneas and Achates saw with astonishment certain of their own friends--Ilioneus, Antheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, whom they had supposed to have been drowned in the storm. These, coming before Dido, told her of their sufferings and entreated her protection in that strange country.

"We had for our king Æneas," said Ilioneus, the spokesman, "than whom none was more pious and brave. If he yet lives we shall not despair, neither shalt thou, O Queen, repent thee of thy hospitality."

Queen Dido answered the Trojans graciously, promising them all they asked and more.

"And would," she added, "that your prince Æneas too were here! But my messengers shall search the Libyan coasts, and if he has been cast ashore he shall be found."

Even as she spoke, the mist that hid Æneas and Achates suddenly parted, and Æneas stood forth in the bright light like a god; and, joyfully embracing his friends, poured out his gratitude to Dido.

The voice of the Queen was even gentler than before as she replied: "I too have been tossed by fortune on the high seas; I too came to these shores a stranger. What sorrow was myself have known, and learnt to melt at others' woe."

Then Dido bade Æneas and Achates to a feast in her palace, and to their followers on the shore she sent bulls, lambs, and wine to provide a banquet. Æneas also despatched Achates to the beach to bring therefrom the young Iulus, and with him presents for the Queen--a mantle stiff with gold, a scepter, a necklace of pearls, and a crown set with double rows of gems and gold.

The gifts made and his son embraced, Æneas was led into the great hall of the palace, where the guests reclined on purple couches. In the midst Queen Dido reclined on a golden couch under a rich canopy, and beside her lay the boy Iulus. So they feasted and were merry, and after the banquet Dido pledged her guest in a loving cup and invited him to tell her all that had befallen him since the fall of Troy.

And he told her the long tale of his perils by land and sea, and of the shipwreck which had landed him upon the hospitable shores of Carthage.

And, as Queen Dido listened, the memory of her dead husband Sichæus was no longer first in her thoughts, for a great love sprang up for this princely stranger who had endured so much and had followed his star, true to his country and his country's gods. Far into the night the Queen sat listening to the tale, and in the night watches the image of the hero haunted her fevered sleep. At the first dawn she sought her sister Anna, and poured into sympathetic ears the trouble of her heart, confessing with shame her fears lest she should prove faithless to the memory of her dead lord.

But Anna bade her mourn no more for the unheeding dead, wasting her youth and beauty.

"Surely," said she, "it was Juno who sent the Trojans to this shore. Think, sister, how your city will flourish, how your kingdom will wax great from such an alliance! How will the Carthaginian glory be advanced by Trojan arms!"

That day she invited her guest to view all the wonders of Carthage. She showed him her rising quays and forts, her palace and its treasures; but even as they conversed her voice would falter, and her silence and blushes were tell-tales and betrayed her growing love. When the evening feast was ended she asked again to hear the tale of Troy, and hung again on his lips.

For the next day, to divert her guest, the Queen ordered a great hunt, and an army of beaters was sent to scour the hills and drive in the game. At dawn a gallant company--all the proud lords of Carthage and the comrades of Æneas--gathered at the palace gates and waited for the Queen. At length she descended from her chamber, robed in gold and purple, and the long cavalcade rode forth headed by Dido and Æneas. When they reached the hills they scattered far and wide in the ardor of the chase, and the royal pair found themselves alone. On a sudden the heavens were darkened and the rain descended in torrents, and Dido and Æneas betook themselves for shelter to a mountain cave. Thus had Juno planned it, for she hated the Trojans and would have kept Æneas in Carthage. There, in the dark cavern, the Trojan plighted his troth to the Carthaginian Queen. That day the tide of death set in. The heavens thundered and the mountain nymphs wailed over their bridal.

But the triumph of Juno was short-lived, for Jupiter, from his throne on Olympus, beheld the founder of the Roman race forgetful of his destiny and sunk in soft dalliance. He called to him his son Mercury, and bade him bind on his winged sandals, and bear to Carthage this stern reproof: "Shame on thee, degenerate hero, false to thy mother and thy son, thus sunk in luxury and ease! Set sail and leave this fatal shore."

The heart of the hero, when he heard this message, was torn in twain. How could he disobey the voice of the god? How could he bring himself to desert the Queen whose heart he had won, and break his troth?

But what were the closest of human ties when the god had spoken? So he called to him his comrades and bade them in secret make ready the ships for departure. But lovers' ears are keen, and rumors of the preparation reached the Queen in her palace. She raved like a madwoman, and called down curses on the perjured traitor. Grown calmer, she sought Æneas and, with mingled reproaches and appeals to his pity, besought him at least to delay his departure. The lover's heart was touched, but the hero was unmoved; and with the gentlest words he could frame, he told the Queen that he had no choice but to follow his weird as Heaven ordained. He could never forget her lovingkindness, and would cherish her memory to his dying day.

Then the Queen knew that she was betrayed, and flatteries and soft words served but to rekindle her rage. She bade the perjured wretch begone; she cursed his false gods and their lying message, and swore that she would pursue him with black flames, and that after death her ghost would haunt him in every place. This said, she turned and left him, and he saw her nevermore.

Æneas would fain have stayed to calm her grief and soothe her rage, but duty bade him go, and he urged on his men to equip the fleet for departure. They, nothing loath, set to, and the harbor was like an ant-hill, with the sailors shaping new oars and loading the beached vessels. Soon the black keels rode the waters all along the shore. Dido, perceiving this from her tower, sent her sister Anna with a last message imploring Æneas yet a little to delay. But Æneas, steadfast as a rock, turned to her a deaf ear, and into the heart of the unhappy Dido came despair and thoughts of death.

To death, indeed, dark omens turned her mind. For when she offered sacrifice, the wine which she poured upon the smoking incense turned to blood; and at night, when kneeling before the shrine of her dead husband, she heard his voice bidding her arise and come to him.

So the Queen, interpreting these dark signs as her sick heart dictated, made ready to die.

Calling her sister Anna, she declared that she would now make use of a magic charm given to her by a priestess to bring back faithless lovers or make the love-sick whole. To work this spell it was necessary to collect and burn all tokens of the light of love.

"Do you, therefore," said Dido to Anna, "gather together the arms and garments which Æneas in his haste to be gone has left behind him, and lay these upon a vast funeral pile, which I beseech you to erect secretly in the inner court of the palace, under the open sky."

As she spoke, a deadly pallor overspread the face of Dido. But her sister Anna, suspecting nothing, made haste to obey the Queen. The great pile was quickly erected, with torches and fagots of oak, and crowned with funeral boughs. On it were placed the weapons and raiment of Æneas, while the Queen offered sacrifices, and herbs cut by moonlight with brazen sickles.

Next morning, before daybreak, Æneas called upon his comrades to set sail. With his own sword he cut the hawsers, and his men, pushing off, smote the sounding waves with their oars, and the wind filling their unfurled sails, they swept out into the open sea as the sun rose over the waters.

From the tower of her palace Queen Dido saw them depart. And lifting up her voice she laid a curse upon them, prophesying that for ages to come dire enmity should rage between the race of Æneas and the Carthaginian people.

Then, very pale, she entered the inner court and mounted the funeral pile. A little while she paused, musing and shedding her last tears.

Anon she spoke, and bade farewell to the light of the sun: "I have lived my life; I have finished the course ordained to me by Fate. I have raised a glorious city. I descend illustrious to the shades below."

She paused, and her voice fell to a low wail as she added: "Happy, ah, too happy, my lot had the Trojan ships never touched my shores!"

Then, unsheathing the sword, she plunged it into her bosom and fell down upon the pyre.

Her handmaidens, seeing her fall, rent the air with their cries. And Anna, rushing in, raised her dying sister in her arms, striving in vain to stanch the flowing blood, and crying with tears: "Oh, sister, was it for this that you bade me raise the pyre? Ah, would that you had let me be your companion in death!"

But the last words of Dido, Queen of Carthage, had been spoken.

* * * * *

Far out at sea, Æneas saw a great smoke rising from Carthage, as it were from a funeral pyre. And a sore pang smote him, and bitterly he divined what had passed. But he held upon his destined way, nor looked he back again, but turned his eyes towards the promised land of Latium.

ÆNEAS IN HADES

BY V. C. TURNBULL

"The journey down to the abyss
Is prosperous and light;
The palace gates of gloomy Dis
Stand open day and night;
But upward to retrace the way,
And pass into the light of day,--
There comes the stress of labor--this
May task a hero's might."

VIRGIL.--_Conington's Translation._

Æneas, in the course of his wanderings, landed on the shores of Cumæ in Italy. Here he sought out the Sibyl, the inspired prophetess who dwelt in a cave behind the temple of Apollo, and gave forth to inquirers the answers of the god. High destinies she promised Æneas, but not without many further trials.

Æneas, undismayed, besought the Sibyl to guide him on his way: "O Priestess, it has been told that here are the gates of the lower world. Open for me, I beg of you, that portal, for I long greatly to speak once more with my dear father. I bore him on my shoulders from flaming Troy, and in all my voyages he accompanied me, facing, though infirm, the terrors of sea and sky. Nay, more, it was at his bidding that I came a suppliant to thy temple. Have pity upon us both, O Sybil, and enable us to meet once more."

Then the Sibyl, in reply, warned Æneas that though many went down with ease into the Abode of the Dead, few--very few, and they the specially favored of the gods--returned therefrom. "But if," she went on, "you are determined to dare the desperate enterprise, seek out in this dark wood a tree that hides one branch all golden. This bough is sacred to Proserpine, Queen of the Lower World, and to her must you bear it as a gift. Without it no living being may enter the Lower World. Pluck it, and if the Fates have willed it so, it will yield at a touch, else no mortal force can wrest it from its parent stem."

So Æneas and Achates plunged into the primeval forest near which the Sibyl dwelt. They had not gone far when two doves alighted on the sward hard by. Then Æneas was glad, for he knew them to be the birds of his mother Venus, and he besought his mother that her messengers might guide him on his way. And the doves flitted on before them till they lighted at last on a lofty tree, amid the boughs of which Æneas discerned the gleam of gold. This was the Golden Bough, growing like mistletoe from the oak, and there was a tinkle in the air as the breeze rustled the golden foil. Joyfully Æneas broke it from the trunk, and bore it back to the dwelling of the Sibyl.

Then the priestess led the way back into the gloomy wood, halting before a cavern, vast and hideous with its yawning black mouth, from which exhaled so poisonous a breath that no bird could cross it unhurt. Here Æneas and the Sibyl offered sacrifices to the Gods of the Lower World. At sunrise the ground began to rumble beneath their feet, and a baying of hell-dogs rolled up from the chasm.

"Avaunt, ye profane!" cried the priestess, "and, Æneas, do thou draw thy sword and march boldly forward; now is the hour to try thy mettle."

So saying, she plunged into the dark cavern, and Æneas, following, entered the world of the dead.

In a desolate country on the outskirts of the spirit-world they saw the forms of Grief and vengeful Cares; here dwelt disconsolate Old Age, Fear, Famine, Death, and Toil. Murderous War was here, and frantic Discord, whose viperous locks are bound with bloody fillets.

All these they passed, coming to the turbid flood Acheron, on which the ferryman Charon, a grisly, unkempt graybeard, with eyes of flame, plied to and fro.

On the banks of the river stood a great company of ghosts, matrons and men, boys and maidens, numerous as swallows flying south, or leaves before the autumn wind. They stood praying to be taken into the boat, and stretching their hands towards the farther shore; but the sullen boatman would take only a few, choosing whom he would. Then, in reply to his questions, the priestess told Æneas that the bodies of those whom the boatman refused had been left unburied upon earth, wherefore these ghosts were doomed to flutter for a hundred years along the shores of Acheron before Charon would consent to ferry them across.

By this time they had reached the landing-stage, and the priestess beckoned to Charon; he refusing at first to carry a mortal across that river till she showed him the Golden Bough. At the sight of this Charon came at once with his boat, pushing out the ghosts that sat therein to make room for Æneas. Groaning beneath the weight of a mortal the boat was well-nigh swamped, but at length the priestess and the hero were safely landed on the farther shore.

But now at the gate stood Cerberus, the three-headed dog, making those realms resound with his barking. To him the priestess threw an opiate of honey-cakes, and he, snatching at it with his three mouths, lay down to sleep, thus permitting them to pass.

Now to their ears came the wails of infants, ghosts of those who had been bereft of sweet life even at their mother's breast. Next came those who had been condemned to death unheard or falsely charged. Full justice they now received; Minos the judge metes out to each his proper sentence.

After these Æneas came upon a group of those unhappy ones who with their own hands had destroyed their lives. Ah, gladly now would they endure poverty and toil could they but revisit the kindly light of the sun!

Now Æneas entered a region named the Fields of Mourning, inhabited by the ghosts of those who had died for love. And among them, in a wood, Æneas saw, or deemed he saw, dim as the new moon in a cloudy sky, the form of Dido, still pale from her death-wound. Tears in his eyes, he addressed her sad ghost with loving words as of old: "So, as I feared, it was true, the message of those funeral fires. And was I, alas! the cause of your death? O Queen, believe that it was against my will that I left thy coasts! Unwilling, I swear, by the behest of the gods did I leave thee, even as now, by the same behest, I tread the land of darkness and despair. Ah, tarry but a little! 'Tis our last farewell."

So he spoke, seeking to soothe the injured shade. But she, with averted eyes, stood still as a statue of stone. Then in silent scorn she fled to seek her first lord, Sichæus, who answers sorrow with sorrow.

Thence to the farthest fields they passed the haunts of heroes slain in battle; and here Æneas greeted many comrades of early days. But when the ghosts of Agamemnon's Greek army beheld the mighty hero, his arms gleaming through the shades, they quaked, and many fled as erstwhile before to their ships, while others, trying to raise the war-cry, could utter only "the bat-like shrilling of the dead."

A pitiful shade, with marred visage and mangled body, approached them, and Æneas recognized the ghost of Deiphobus, son of Priam, and asked of his cruel fate; and Deiphobus poured forth the long tale of his wife's treachery, and how he had been foully slaughtered in his sleep. Long had they thus conversed, but the Sibyl plucked Æneas by the robe and warned him: "Night falls apace; 'tis time to go. Thou hast come to the parting of the ways. Here lie Elysium and the fields of the blessed, and there, to the left, Tartarus and the tortures of the damned." And even now Æneas descried vast prisons inclosed with a triple wall, round which the river Phlegethon rolled its threefold floods of flame, while rocks whirled roaring down the stream. Over against the stream stood a massive gateway, whose adamantine columns defied all force of men or gods, and above the gate rose a tower of iron. Here sat the Fury Tisiphone, watching all who entered. And from within the gate came groans and the whistling of scourges and the clanking of chains.

Æneas asked what meant this woful wailing, and the Sibyl replied: "None innocent may cross that threshold. There Rhadamanthus judges the dead, and avenging Tisiphone scourges the guilty. Within the gate rages the Hydra with fifty gaping mouths. Downward sinks the pit, twice as deep as the heavens are high. In it groan the Titans, hurled down with thunderbolts, and the giants, Otus and Ephialtes, who strove to overturn the throne of Jupiter himself. There lies Tityus, o'er nine roods outstretched, and eternally does a vulture tear his liver with her beak. Over some hangs a rock threatening ever to fall; before others a bounteous banquet is continually spread, but the hands that they stretch to take the food are evermore struck back by the Furies. Some roll a huge stone, others are bound to the revolving wheel. Here lie they who heaped up riches for themselves, an unnumbered multitude; here also they who hated their brothers or lifted cruel hands against their parents. Take warning by their fate, and ask no further concerning their awful doom."

Thus warned, Æneas went forward in silence, and at the direction of the Sibyl he offered the Golden Bough at the gate.

Now came they at length to the regions of joy, the green retreats and happy groves of Elysium. An ampler ether and a purer light invest these fields, for the blessed have their own sun and stars. In jousts and races, in dance and song, they fleet the golden hours, a blessed company of bards and patriots, paladins and victors in the races. Among them Æneas marked Ilus, a former king of Troy, and Dardanus, that city's founder. Their chariots were empty, their spears stood fixed in the ground, their horses fed at large throughout the plain, for the ruling purpose in life survives the grave.

There, in a sequestered dale, stood Anchises surveying the souls that were to revisit earth once more, among them his own offspring yet unborn. But when he saw Æneas moving to meet him, with outstretched arms and tearful eyes he cried: "O my son, my son, hast thou come to me indeed? Am I permitted to see thy face and hear thy well-known voice once more?" And Æneas answered, weeping also: "Give me thy hand, my father, and take me to thy breast." Thrice he strove to throw his arm round his father, thrice the phantom slipped from his embrace, thin as the fluttering breeze or like a dream of the night. Gazing around him he saw in a wooded glade numberless peoples and tribes, hovering above the brakes like bees in summer-time, and he inquired of his sire what these might be.

Then Anchises taught Æneas many wonderful things concerning the state of departed souls in Elysium and the future of the Trojan race. And touching the first, he said that after suffering many things the evil of their natures was washed or burned away, and they passed to Elysium, there to dwell for a thousand years. "All these," he continued, "are then summoned forth by the gods in a great body to the river Lethe, wherein they leave all memory of the past and again become willing to return into mortal bodies."

Saying this, he led Æneas to the summit of a hill from which they who were to be born could be seen passing in an endless file before them.

"See you," he said, "that youth leaning on a pointless spear? He shall be Silvius, the child of thy old age, and shall reign over Alba Longa. Behold there Romulus, the founder of Rome, the city of the seven hills, he shall rule the world. The graybeard behind him is Numa, the lawgiver, and next comes Tullus, the warrior. Those that follow are the proud Tarquins. There, too, is Brutus, unhappy man, who shall give liberty to Rome; and, unhappy father! whose inflexible justice shall doom to death his guilty sons."

All these and many others who sprang from Æneas' loins, did Anchises point out, crying as he ended: "To you, O Romans, be it given to rule the nations, to dictate terms of peace, to spare the humbled, and to crush the proud."

Last they watched the great Marcellus, the terror of the Gauls, the conqueror of Carthage.

Then Æneas asked: "What youth is he, O father, who walks by his side in shining armor; but his countenance is sad, his eyes fixed upon the ground? Is he a son, or haply a grandson?"

And Anchises wept as he replied: "Alas, my son, for the sorrows of thy kindred! Dear child of pity! could'st thou but burst thy fate's invidious bar, our own Marcellus thou! Ah! woful shall be the day of his death! Could he but live none had faced his onset. Bring lilies--lilies in handfuls; let me heap bright flowers on the shade unborn, and pay at least this empty tribute."[1]

Thus they passed through Elysium, Anchises showing and explaining all to Æneas, firing him with the thoughts of future fame, and instructing him how to act throughout the struggles of his remaining life. Then, when all had been shown and said, Father Anchises sent back his son Æneas and the Sibyl to the mortal world by that shining Ivory Gate where through pass the dreams that visit the slumbers of men.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The reference is to Marcellus, nephew and son-in-law of Augustus, and his destined heir. He died at the early age of eighteen.

NISUS AND EURYALUS

BY F. STORR

Æneas was absent from the camp. Warned by Father Tiber he had gone with a picked band of followers to seek the alliance of his kinsman, King Evander, who with his Arcadians had settled themselves on the seven hills which now are Rome.

Whilst he was away, the camp was left in charge of his son Iulus, and as adjutant and counselor to the young prince he appointed his most experienced general, old Aletes.

But Juno, the implacable foe of Troy, had despatched to Turnus, the Rutulian Prince, her messenger Iris to tell him of Æneas' absence and bid him seize the occasion to storm the Trojan camp. So all day long the garrison, reduced in numbers and without its great captain, saw the tide of horse and foot, Latins, Rutulians, and Etruscans, gathering in the plain and sweeping onward to overwhelm them, like the Nile in full flood. As Æneas had bid them, they retired within their intrenchments, too strong to be carried at the first assault.

At nightfall the enemy withdrew, and the weary defenders lay down to sleep, but in fear of a night attack they ventured not to unbuckle their armor, and at each camp-gate was posted a strong guard of sentinels.

Conspicuous among the captains of the guard was Nisus, whom his mother, Ida, the world-famed huntress, had sent as squire to Æneas, no less skilled than his mother with javelin or with bow. With him as his lieutenant was Euryalus, the fairest youth, save Iulus alone, in all the Trojan host, the down of manhood just showing on his cheek, elsewise as round and smooth as a girl's.

The two were more than brothers-in-arms, inseparable as twin cherries on a single stalk; the one followed the other as his shadow, and their love was more than the love of man and maid.

And now as they kept watch together they thus conversed:

NISUS. I know not what ails me, brother, but to-night I feel a wild unrest, a strange prompting to be up and doing some doughty deed. What think you, brother? Is it an inspiration of heaven or only my own fiery spirit, pent up within these walls and fretting for the fray? Mark you, brother. The enemy's camp is silent as the tomb. Not a sentinel is stirring, and the rare watch-fires burn low. 'Tis plain to me that the captains, having driven us back to our trenches, have been celebrating their victory and are now buried in drunken slumber. Now I will expound to thee the plan that is working in my brain. At all hazards Æneas must be summoned back from the city of Evander--so our generals and men are all agreed. If only my proposal is accepted, methinks I have discovered a way to bear the message and work our deliverance.

EURYALUS. Verily 'tis a glorious venture and well worth the risk, but thou speakest as if the venture were thine. Can I have heard thee aright? Truly, brother, the plan is _thine_, but the execution is _ours_. Thinkest thou, brother, alone to put thy head into the lion's mouth? Shall I not share thy triumph or thy death? In life we have been one, and in death we shall not be divided.

NISUS. Nay, brother, I never doubted thy courage or thy love. This thought alone, perhaps a selfish thought, was mine: if perchance I should fall--and sanguine as I am of success I know 'tis a perilous hazard--I would fain one sure friend survived to lay my body in mother earth, or if that grace is denied, at least to perform due rites at my cenotaph. I thought, moreover, that thou art the younger man and thy mother's only son.

EURYALUS. Out on thy vain excuses! Only if thou takest me with thee will I forgive them. My mind is set. Let us to work.

So they called to the nearest sentinels to relieve them of their guard and hurried to seek Iulus. They found him in his tent presiding over a council of war, but the sentries let them pass on business that would not wait. It chanced that the captains were at that moment debating how possibly to convey a message to Æneas informing him of their pressing need, and when Nisus expounded to them his plan, assuring them that as a young hunter he had explored every inch of the ground and knew a secret forest path that would lead them to the rear of the enemy's camp, he was welcomed as a messenger sent from heaven. Old Aletes laid his hands on their heads and with tears in his eyes blessed the gods for sending such deliverers. "Young heroes!" he cried, "your virtue is its own reward, but Æneas, when he returns, will know how to recompense you." Iulus, with boyish generosity, promised them his choicest treasures, embossed tankards and two talents of gold, aye and the charger and arms of Turnus, whose fall was certain when Æneas returned; and he put his arms round Euryalus' neck (the youth was scarce older than himself) and called him his brother-in-arms.

Boldened by this signal favor of the prince, Euryalus, on bended knee, besought one parting boon. "Prince," he cried, "I have an aged mother who for my sake left her native home and the court of King Acestes to accompany me to the wars. I may not stay to bid her farewell and receive her blessing, nor could I dare confide to her our perilous errand. Thou hast deigned to call me brother: O prince, be to her a son. To know that thou wilt be here to solace and comfort her will give me fresh confidence." The prince swore to love and cherish her no less than his own lost mother, Creusa, and wishing him Godspeed he girt on his shoulder the sword of that famous Cretan swordsman, Lycaon, with hilt of wrought gold and scabbard of ivory. To Nisus, Achates gave his own helmet, that had borne the brunt of many a shrewd blow.

Thus armed and charged with many messages from Iulus to his father they left the camp, and the captains sent after them a parting cheer.

The night was dark, but Nisus could almost have found his way blindfolded through the familiar forest. In a short hour they had reached the camp unperceived, and then, as Nisus had anticipated, they found a scene of barbarous revelry. Amongst tilted war-chariots, tethered horses, and empty wine-jars men lay stretched in drunken slumber.

"Follow me," whispered Nisus, "and keep an open eye lest any attack me from behind. I will hew thee anon a path of blood by which we can both pass to our goal."

With drawn sword he rushed on Rhamnes, who lay snoring on a pile of broidered coverlets: an augur was he of royal blood, but little did his augury avail him that day. His three attendants soon followed their master to the shades. Like a ravening wolf who has leapt into the sheepfold he dealt havoc right and left, and all that Nisus spared the sword of Euryalus despatched.

"Enough," cried Nisus, at length sated with carnage; "our way through the enemy is clear, and the tell-tale morn is nigh at hand." Much rich spoil they left behind--flagons of gold and silver, gemmed goblets and broideries; but Euryalus cast longing eyes on a huge baldrick with bosses of gold, an heirloom of the dead augur, and he strapped it round his shoulder; nor could he resist (proud youth) the temptation to try on a bright helmet with flaming crest of Messapus, the Tamer of Steeds. With these spoils to attest their glorious raid, the pair left the camp and gained in safety the open.

Their task seemed well-nigh accomplished, but it chanced that a troop of three hundred horse, despatched from the Latin capital as an advanced guard for Turnus, were just then approaching the camp from the opposite direction, and espying in the twilight the glint of the helmet they challenged the pair. No answer was returned, and Nisus, who was leading, quickened his pace to gain the shelter of the forest. The horsemen wheeled round and sought to cut off their retreat, but they were too late, and Nisus was already speeding down a winding bypath that he knew full well, when he looked back, and to his horror perceived that Euryalus was not following. "Euryalus!" he shouted, but no answer came. He turned and painfully retraced his steps. Soon he heard the tramp of horses among the brushwood and broken branches, and guided by the sound in a clearing of the forest he saw Euryalus, his back against an oak, like a stag at bay, facing a ring of horsemen. What was he to do? To save himself by flight was unthinkable, but should he rush at once on certain death? In desperation he breathed a prayer to his patron goddess Diana. "Queen of the woods," he cried, "by the gifts I have offered on thine altar, by the vows I have daily paid, help me now in my utmost need and guide my aim!" So praying, he hurled with all his might a spear, and so straight and swift it flew that Sulmo was transfixed from back to breast, and the shaft snapped off short as the barbed head quivered in the wound. A second spear buried itself in Tagus's brain, and he too bit the dust. Volscens, the captain of the troop, saw his two comrades struck down as by a bolt from the blue, and with drawn sword he turned on Euryalus crying, "If I cannot reach the fiend who hurled those spears, thy blood at least shall atone the bloody deed."

At this Nisus could no longer restrain himself, and leaping from the covert he shouted, "I, none but I, am the guilty cause. Oh, spare this innocent boy and turn your swords on me! To love his friend too well, this was his only crime!" But his words were vain; while yet he spoke the sword of Volscens had pierced the boy's heart and stained with gore his white side, and he drooped his head like a poppy drenched with rain, or a harebell upturned by the plowshare.

At the sight Nisus hurled himself into the thick of his foes, scattering them right and left with the lightnings of his glaive, till he forced his way to Volscens, and with a dying effort smote the murderer of his sweet friend. Pierced with a hundred wounds he fell upon Euryalus' prostrate corpse, and a smile was on his lips, for in death they were not divided.

Such was the tale that Virgil sang, and the prophecy that he uttered nigh upon two thousand years ago has been fulfilled: