Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/186

 Berecyntian[o] mother rides tower-crowned through the towns of Phrygia, proud of the gods that have sprung from her, a hundred grand-children at her knee, all dwellers in heaven, all lords of the lofty sky. Hither now turn your two rays of vision: look at this family, at Romans            5 of your own. Here is Cæsar: here the whole progeny of Iulus, as it will pass one day under heaven's mighty cope. This, this is he, the man promised to you so often, Augustus Cæsar, true child of a god, who shall establish again for Latium a golden age in that very region where Saturn          10 once reigned, while he stretches his sway alike beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is lying outside the stars, outside the sun's yearly path, where heaven-carrier Atlas turns round on his shoulder the pole, studded with burning constellations. In view of his approach, a            15 shiver runs already by oracular warning through Caspian realms and Mæotian land, and there is stir and confusion at the mouths of seven-fold Nile. Nay, even Alcides traversed no such length of earth, though he stalked the brazen-footed deer, or tamed Erymanthus' savage wilds,          20 and appalled Lerna with his arrows: no, nor he who guides his triumphal car with reins of ivy-leaf, Bacchus, driving his tigers down from Nysa's lofty top. And do we still hesitate to let prowess give scope to power, or does fear prevent our setting foot on Ausonian soil? 25 But who is he in the distance, conspicuous with a wreath of olive, with sacred vessels in his hand? Ah! I know the hoary hair and beard of the king of Rome, who shall give the infant city the support of law, sent from his homely Cures and a land of poverty into a mighty empire. 30 Next shall come one doomed to break his country's peace, and stir up with the war-cry of his name, Tullus, warriors rusting in ease and squadrons that have forgotten their triumphs. Ancus follows, a greater boaster, even now too ready to catch the breath of a popular cheer. Would             35 you look too at the kings of Tarquin's house, at the haughty spirit of Brutus the avenger, and the fasces[o] retrieved? He shall be the first to take the consul's power