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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book IV Chapter 6: The hunt | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Aurora rose, and left the ocean's rim. The city's gates pour forth to greet the morn a gallant train of huntsmen, bearing many a woven snare and steel-tipped javelin; while to and fro run the keen-scented dogs and Libyan squires. The Queen [Note 1] still keeps her chamber; at her doors the Punic lords await; her palfrey, brave in gold and purple housing, paws the ground and fiercely champs the foam-flecked bridle-rein. At last, with numerous escort, forth she shines: her Tyrian pall is bordered in bright hues, her quiver, gold; her tresses are confined only with gold; her robes of purple rare meet in a golden clasp. To greet her come the noble Phrygian guests; among them smiles the boy Iulus; and in fair array Aeneas, goodliest of all his train. In such a guise Apollo (when he leaves cold Lycian hills and Xanthus' frosty stream to visit Delos to Latona dear) ordains the song, while round his altars cry the choirs of many islands, with the pied, fantastic Agathyrsi; soon the god moves o'er the Cynthian steep; his flowing hair he binds with laurel garland and bright gold; upon his shining shoulder as he goes the arrows ring: -- not less uplifted mien Aeneas wore; from his illustrious brow such beauty shone. Soon to the mountains tall the cavalcade comes nigh, to pathless haunts of woodland creatures; the wild goats are seen, from pointed crag descending leap by leap down the steep ridges; in the vales below are routed deer, that scour the spreading plain, and mass their dust-blown squadrons in wild flight, far from the mountain's bound. Ascanius flushed with the sport, spurs on a mettled steed from vale to vale, and many a flying herd his chase outspeeds; but in his heart he prays among these tame things suddenly to see a tusky boar, or, leaping from the hills, a growling mountain-lion, golden-maned. Note 1: Queen = Dido Event: Love and Death of Dido |
129-159 Oceanum interea surgens Aurora reliquit. it portis iubare exorto delecta iuuentus, retia rara, plagae, lato uenabula ferro, Massylique ruunt equites et odora canum uis. reginam thalamo cunctantem ad limina primi Poenorum exspectant, ostroque insignis et auro stat sonipes ac frena ferox spumantia mandit. tandem progreditur magna stipante caterua Sidoniam picto chlamydem circumdata limbo; cui pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in aurum, aurea purpuream subnectit fibula uestem. nec non et Phrygii comites et laetus Iulus incedunt. ipse ante alios pulcherrimus omnis infert se socium Aeneas atque agmina iungit. qualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta deserit ac Delum maternam inuisit Apollo instauratque choros, mixtique altaria circum Cretesque Dryopesque fremunt pictique Agathyrsi; ipse iugis Cynthi graditur mollique fluentem fronde premit crinem fingens atque implicat auro, tela sonant umeris: haud illo segnior ibat Aeneas, tantum egregio decus enitet ore. postquam altos uentum in montis atque inuia lustra, ecce ferae saxi deiectae uertice caprae decurrere iugis; alia de parte patentis transmittunt cursu campos atque agmina cerui puluerulenta fuga glomerant montisque relinquunt. at puer Ascanius mediis in uallibus acri gaudet equo iamque hos cursu, iam praeterit illos, spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia uotis optat aprum, aut fuluum descendere monte leonem. |