HKB
deserts, and this high virtue shown, Ye warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown: Fill high the goblets with a sparkling flood, And with deep draughts invoke our common god.”
This said, a double wreath Evander twin’d, And poplars black and white his temples bind. Then brims his ample bowl. With like design The rest invoke the gods, with sprinkled wine. Meantime the sun descended from the skies, And the bright evening star began to rise. And now the priests, Potitius at their head, In skins of beasts involv’d, the long procession led; Held high the flaming tapers in their hands, As custom had prescrib’d their holy bands; Then with a second course the tables load, And with full chargers offer to the god. The Salii sing, and cense his altars round With Saban smoke, their heads with poplar bound One choir of old, another of the young, To dance, and bear the burthen of the song. The lay records the labours, and the praise, And all th’ immortal acts of Hercules: First, how the mighty babe, when swath’d in bands, The serpents strangled with his infant hands; Then, as in years and matchless force he grew, Th’ Oechalian walls, and Trojan, overthrew. Besides, a thousand hazards they relate, Procur’d by Juno’s and Eurystheus’ hate: “Thy hands, unconquer’d hero, could subdue The cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster crew: Nor thy resistless arm the bull withstood, Nor he, the roaring terror of the wood. The triple porter of the Stygian seat, With lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet, And, seiz’d with fear, forgot his mangled meat. Th’ infernal waters trembled at thy sight; Thee, god, no face of danger could affright; Not huge Typhoeus, nor th’ unnumber’d snake, Increas’d with hissing heads, in Lerna’s lake. Hail, Jove’s undoubted son! an added grace To heav’n and the great author of thy race! Receive the grateful off’rings which we pay, And smile propitious on thy solemn day!” In numbers thus they sung; above the rest, The den and death of Cacus crown the feast. The woods to hollow vales convey the sound, The vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound. The rites perform’d, the cheerful train retire.
Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire, The Trojan pass’d, the city to survey, And pleasing talk beguil’d the tedious way. The stranger cast around his curious eyes, New objects viewing still, with new surprise; With greedy joy enquires of various things, And acts and monuments of ancient kings. Then thus the founder of the Roman tow’rs: “These woods were first the seat of sylvan pow’rs, Of Nymphs and Fauns, and salvage men, who took Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak. Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care Of lab’ring oxen, or the shining share, Nor arts of gain, nor what they gain’d to spare. Their exercise the chase; the running flood Supplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food. Then Saturn came, who fled the pow’r of Jove, Robb’d of his realms, and banish’d from above. The men, dispers’d on hills, to towns he brought, And laws ordain’d, and civil customs taught, And Latium call’d the land where safe he lay From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway. With his mild empire, peace and plenty came; And hence the golden times deriv’d their name. A more degenerate and discolour’d age Succeeded this, with avarice and rage. Th’ Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians came; And Saturn’s empire often chang’d the name. Then kings, gigantic Tybris, and the rest, With arbitrary sway the land oppress’d: For Tiber’s flood was Albula before, Till, from the tyrant’s fate, his name it bore. I last arriv’d, driv’n from my native home By fortune’s pow’r, and fate’s resistless doom. Long toss’d on seas, I sought this happy land, Warn’d by my mother nymph, and call’d by Heav’n’s command.”