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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book VII Chapter 10: The palace of Latinus | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Large and majestical the castle rose: a hundred columns lifted it in air upon the city's crown -- the royal keep of Picus of Laurentum; round it lay deep, gloomy woods by olden worship blest. Here kings took sceptre and the fasces proud with omens fair; the selfsame sacred place was senate-house and temple; here was found a hall for hallowed feasting, where a ram was offered up, and at long banquet-boards the nation's fathers sat in due array. Here ranged ancestral statues roughly hewn of ancient cedar-wood: King Italus; Father Sabinus, planter of the vine, a curving sickle in his sculptured hand; gray-bearded Saturn; and the double brow of Janus' head; and other sires and kings were wardens of the door, with many a chief wounded in battle for his native land. Trophies of arms in goodly order hung along the columns: chariots of war from foeman taken, axes of round blade, plumed helmets, bolts and barriers of steel from city-gates, shields, spears, and beaks of bronze from captured galleys by the conqueror torn. Here, wielding his Quirinal augur-staff, girt in scant shift, and bearing on his left the sacred oval shield, appeared enthroned Picus, breaker of horses, whom his bride, enamoured Circe, smote with golden wand, and, raining o'er him potent poison-dew, changed to a bird of pied and dappled wings. Event: Picus and Circe |
170- Tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis urbe fuit summa, Laurentis regia Pici, horrendum siluis et religione parentum. hic sceptra accipere et primos attollere fascis regibus omen erat; hoc illis curia templum, hae sacris sedes epulis; hic ariete caeso perpetuis soliti patres considere mensis. quin etiam ueterum effigies ex ordine auorum antiqua e cedro, Italusque paterque Sabinus uitisator curuam seruans sub imagine falcem, Saturnusque senex Ianique bifrontis imago uestibulo astabant, aliique ab origine reges, Martiaque ob patriam pugnando uulnera passi. multaque praeterea sacris in postibus arma, captiui pendent currus curuaeque secures et cristae capitum et portarum ingentia claustra spiculaque clipeique ereptaque rostra carinis. ipse Quirinali lituo paruaque sedebat succinctus trabea laeuaque ancile gerebat Picus, equum domitor, quem capta cupidine coniunx aurea percussum uirga uersumque uenenis fecit auem Circe sparsitque coloribus alas. |