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قراءة كتاب The Works of John Dryden. Now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 15. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical and explanatory, and the life of the author, by Walter Scott, esq. Vol. XV.
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اللغة: English
The Works of John Dryden. Now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 15. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical and explanatory, and the life of the author, by Walter Scott, esq. Vol. XV.
الصفحة رقم: 8
plunged in ills, and meditating more—
The people's patience, tried, no longer bore
The raging monster; but with arms beset
His house, and vengeance and destruction threat.
They fire his palace: while the flame ascends,
They force his guards, and execute his friends.
He cleaves the crowd, and, favoured by the night,
To Turnus' friendly court directs his flight.
By just revenge the Tuscans set on fire,
With arms, their king to punishment require:
Their numerous troops, now mustered on the strand,
My counsel shall submit to your command.
Their navy swarms upon the coasts; they cry
To hoist their anchors, but the gods deny.
An ancient augur, skilled in future fate,
With these foreboding words restrains their hate:—
"Ye brave in arms, ye Lydian blood, the flower
Of Tuscan youth, and choice of all their power,
Whom just revenge against Mezentius arms,
To seek your tyrant's death by lawful arms!
Know this: no native of our land may lead
This powerful people; seek a foreign head."
Awed with these words, in camps they still abide,
And wait with longing looks their promised guide.
Tarchon, the Tuscan chief, to me has sent
Their crown, and every regal ornament:
The people join their own with his desire;
And all my conduct, as their king, require.
But the chill blood that creeps within my veins,
And age, and listless limbs unfit for pains,
And a soul conscious of its own decay,
Have forced me to refuse imperial sway.
My Pallas were more fit to mount the throne,
And should, but he's a Sabine mother's son,
And half a native: but, in you, combine
A manly vigour, and a foreign line.
Where Fate and smiling Fortune shew the way,
Pursue the ready path to sovereign sway.
The staff of my declining days, my son,
Shall make your good or ill success his own;
In fighting fields, from you shall learn to dare,
And serve the hard apprenticeship of war;
Your matchless courage and your conduct view,
And early shall begin to admire and copy you.
Besides, two hundred horse he shall command—
Though few, a warlike and well-chosen band.
These in my name are listed; and my son
As many more has added in his own."
Scarce had he said; Achates and his guest,
With downcast eyes, their silent grief expressed;
Who, short of succours, and in deep despair,
Shook at the dismal prospect of the war.
But his bright mother, from a breaking cloud,
To cheer her issue, thundered thrice aloud;
Thrice forky lightning flashed along the sky,
And Tyrrhene trumpets thrice were heard on high.
Then, gazing up, repeated peals they hear;
And in a heaven serene, refulgent arms appear:
Reddening the skies, and glittering all around,
The tempered metals clash, and yield a silver sound.
The rest stood trembling: struck with awe divine,
Æneas only, conscious to the sign,
Presaged the event, and joyful viewed, above,
The accomplished promise of the queen of love.
Then, to the Arcadian king:—"This prodigy
(Dismiss your fear) belongs alone to me.
Heaven calls me to the war: the expected sign
Is given of promised aid, and arms divine.
My goddess mother, whose indulgent care
Foresaw the dangers of the growing war,
This omen gave, when bright Vulcanian arms,
Fated from force of steel by Stygian charms,
Suspended, shone on high: she then foreshowed
Approaching fights, and fields to float in blood.
Turnus shall dearly pay for faith forsworn;
And corps, and swords, and shields, on Tyber borne,
Shall choke his flood: now sound the loud alarms;
And, Latian troops, prepare your perjured arms."
He said, and, rising from his homely throne,
The solemn rites of Hercules begun,
And on his altars waked the sleeping fires;
Then cheerful to his household gods retires;
There offers chosen sheep. The Arcadian king
And Trojan youth the same oblations bring.
Next, of his men and ships he makes review;
Draws out the best, and ablest of the crew.
Down with the falling stream the refuse run,
To raise with joyful news his drooping son.
Steeds are prepared to mount the Trojan band,
Who wait their leader to the Tyrrhene land.
A sprightly courser, fairer than the rest,
The king himself presents his royal guest.
A lion's hide his back and limbs infold,
Precious with studded work, and paws of gold.
Fame through the little city spreads aloud
The intended march: amid the fearful crowd,
The matrons beat their breasts, dissolve in tears,
And double their devotion in their fears.
The war at hand appears with more affright,
And rises every moment to the sight.
Then old Evander, with a close embrace,
Strained his departing friend; and tears o'erflow his face.
"Would heaven (said he) my strength and youth recal,
Such as I was beneath Præneste's wall—
Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
And set whole heaps of conquered shields on fire;
When Herilus in single fight I slew,
Whom with three lives Feronia did endue;
And thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,
Till the last ebbing soul returned no more—
Such if I stood renewed, not these alarms,
Nor death, should rend me from my Pallas' arms;
Nor proud Mezentius thus, unpunished, boast
His rapes and murders on the Tuscan coast.
Ye gods! and mighty Jove! in pity bring
Relief, and hear a father and a king!
If fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
My son returned with peace and victory;
If the loved boy shall bless his father's sight;
If we shall meet again with more delight;
Then draw my life in length; let