HKB
with like officious care He marks their foreheads, and he clips their hair. Betwixt their horns the purple wine he sheds; With the same gen’rous juice the flame he feeds.
Aeneas then unsheath’d his shining sword, And thus with pious pray’rs the gods ador’d: “All-seeing sun, and thou, Ausonian soil, For which I have sustain’d so long a toil, Thou, King of Heav’n, and thou, the Queen of Air, Propitious now, and reconcil’d by pray’r; Thou, God of War, whose unresisted sway The labours and events of arms obey; Ye living fountains, and ye running floods, All pow’rs of ocean, all ethereal gods, Hear, and bear record: if I fall in field, Or, recreant in the fight, to Turnus yield, My Trojans shall encrease Evander’s town; Ascanius shall renounce th’ Ausonian crown: All claims, all questions of debate, shall cease; Nor he, nor they, with force infringe the peace. But, if my juster arms prevail in fight, (As sure they shall, if I divine aright,) My Trojans shall not o’er th’ Italians reign: Both equal, both unconquer’d shall remain, Join’d in their laws, their lands, and their abodes; I ask but altars for my weary gods. The care of those religious rites be mine; The crown to King Latinus I resign: His be the sov’reign sway. Nor will I share His pow’r in peace, or his command in war. For me, my friends another town shall frame, And bless the rising tow’rs with fair Lavinia’s name.”
Thus he. Then, with erected eyes and hands, The Latian king before his altar stands. “By the same heav’n,” said he, “and earth, and main, And all the pow’rs that all the three contain; By hell below, and by that upper god Whose thunder signs the peace, who seals it with his nod; So let Latona’s double offspring hear, And double-fronted Janus, what I swear: I touch the sacred altars, touch the flames, And all those pow’rs attest, and all their names; Whatever chance befall on either side, No term of time this union shall divide: No force, no fortune, shall my vows unbind, Or shake the steadfast tenor of my mind; Not tho’ the circling seas should break their bound, O’erflow the shores, or sap the solid ground; Not tho’ the lamps of heav’n their spheres forsake, Hurl’d down, and hissing in the nether lake: Ev’n as this royal scepter” (for he bore A scepter in his hand) “shall never more Shoot out in branches, or renew the birth: An orphan now, cut from the mother earth By the keen ax, dishonour’d of its hair, And cas’d in brass, for Latian kings to bear.”
When thus in public view the peace was tied With solemn vows, and sworn on either side, All dues perform’d which holy rites require; The victim beasts are slain before the fire, The trembling entrails from their bodies torn, And to the fatten’d flames in chargers borne.
Already the Rutulians deem their man O’ermatch’d in arms, before the fight began. First rising fears are whisper’d thro’ the crowd; Then, gath’ring sound, they murmur more aloud. Now, side to side, they measure with their eyes The champions’ bulk, their sinews, and their size: The nearer they approach, the more is known Th’ apparent disadvantage of their own. Turnus himself appears in public sight Conscious of fate, desponding of the fight. Slowly he moves, and at his altar stands With eyes dejected, and with trembling hands; And, while he mutters undistinguish’d pray’rs, A livid deadness in his cheeks appears.