Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/231

 *bassadors with the royal crown and sceptre, and given to my hands the ensigns of power, bidding me join the camp, and assume the Tyrrhene throne. But age, with its enfeebling chill and the exhaustion of its long term of years, grudges me the honour of command; my day of martial      5 prowess is past. Fain would I encourage my son to the task, but that the blood of a Sabine mother blending with mine makes his race half Italian. You, in years and in race alike the object of Fate's indulgence—you, the chosen one of Heaven—assume the place that waits        10 you, gallant general of Teucrians and Italians both. Nay, I will give you, too, Pallas here, the hope and solace of my age; under your tutelage let him learn to endure military service and the war-god's strenuous labours; let your actions be his pattern, and his young admiration be      15 centred on you. To him I will give two hundred Arcadian horsemen, the flower of my chivalry, and Pallas in his own name shall give you as many more."

Scarce had his words been uttered—and the twain were holding their eyes in downcast thought, Æneas     20 Anchises' son and true Achates, brooding each with his own sad heart on many a peril, had not Cythera's goddess sent a sign from the clear sky. For unforeseen, flashed from the heaven, comes a glare and a peal, and all around seemed crashing down at once, and the clang of the      25 Tyrrhene trumpet appeared to blare through ether. They look up: a second and a third time cracks the enormous sound. Armour enveloped in a cloud in a clear quarter of the firmament is seen to flash redly in the sunlight and to ring as clashed together. The rest were all amazement;   30 but the Trojan hero recognized the sound, and in it the promise of his goddess mother. Then he cries: "Nay, my host, nay, ask not in sooth what chance these wonders portend; it is I that have a call from on high. This was the sign that the goddess who gave me birth      35 foreshowed me that she would send, should the attack of war come, while she would bring through the air armour from Vulcan for my help. Alas! how vast the carnage