Virgil: The Aeneid

10. BOOK X (continued)

Thus Juno. Murmurs rise, with mix'd applause,
Just as they favor or dislike the cause.
So winds, when yet unfledg'd in woods they lie,
In whispers first their tender voices try,
Then issue on the main with bellowing rage,
And storms to trembling mariners presage.

Then thus to both replied th' imperial god,
Who shakes heav'n's axles with his awful nod.
(When he begins, the silent senate stand
With rev'rence, list'ning to the dread command:
The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;
And the hush'd waves lie flatted on the main.)
"Celestials, your attentive ears incline!
Since," said the god, "the Trojans must not join
In wish'd alliance with the Latian line;
Since endless jarrings and immortal hate
Tend but to discompose our happy state;
The war henceforward be resign'd to fate:
Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;
Equal and unconcern'd I look on all.
Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;
And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.
Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;
And, if she favors those, let those defend:
The Fates will find their way." The Thund'rer said,
And shook the sacred honors of his head,
Attesting Styx, th' inviolable flood,
And the black regions of his brother god.
Trembled the poles of heav'n, and earth confess'd the nod.
This end the sessions had: the senate rise,
And to his palace wait their sov'reign thro' the skies.

Meantime, intent upon their siege, the foes
Within their walls the Trojan host inclose:
They wound, they kill, they watch at ev'ry gate;
Renew the fires, and urge their happy fate.

Th' Aeneans wish in vain their wanted chief,
Hopeless of flight, more hopeless of relief.
Thin on the tow'rs they stand; and ev'n those few
A feeble, fainting, and dejected crew.
Yet in the face of danger some there stood:
The two bold brothers of Sarpedon's blood,
Asius and Acmon; both th' Assaraci;
Young Haemon, and tho' young, resolv'd to die.
With these were Clarus and Thymoetes join'd;
Tibris and Castor, both of Lycian kind.
From Acmon's hands a rolling stone there came,
So large, it half deserv'd a mountain's name:
Strong-sinew'd was the youth, and big of bone;
His brother Mnestheus could not more have done,
Or the great father of th' intrepid son.
Some firebrands throw, some flights of arrows send;
And some with darts, and some with stones defend.