Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/86

 THE GRANITE MONTHLY. THE TEMPEST-TOST .ENEADE.

��A TRANSLATION FROM VIRGIL. BY BELA CHAPIN.

Arms and the chief I sing. vvho. with :i Land Of wandering heroes, fled far o'er the sea ; Thrust out and exiled from the Trojan land. He came from thence, the first, by Fate's decree, To hatian coasts, to strands of Italy. Tost to and fro was he 'mid dangers great, On land and wave, in deep adversity ; By power supernal, whose dread aid might sate The ruthless Juno's rage and unrelenting hate.

And when he reached the far Lavinian shore, The clime predestined for his ful ure race. Unnumbered toils in war he suffered more. While he would build a town — 1 dwelling-place — And give his gods in Latian land a space — Tho-e sacred guardians of his Trojan home. Thence their famed tit4e d > th » Latins trace ; From thence the lines of Alban fathers come, And the high walls and battlements of mighty Rome.

Say. Muse, thou prompter of heroic verse. What god-head was constrained in anger so, To cause such toils? Do thou in song rehearse Why the fair queen of heaven such ire should sliow. To plunge ^Eneas into deepest woe. And cloud his way with dangers thii kly strown, Causing his limbs to quake, his tears to flow. Can heavenly souls such high resentment own, And exercise their rage on frail mankind alone?

Soiith of Italia, upon Afric's shore, A thriving city stood, of ami. nt date And Carthage was the name the city bore; A tribe from Tyre did erst its rise create. 'Twas full of wealth and strong in armies great. That place did Juno love with dear delight, More than her Samian isle or Argive state; There were her weapons stored, of brazen might. And there her chariot stood, for ever gleaming bright.

And Juno sought — it was her firm intent — To make that realm of wide-extended sway. Both far and near, if Fate mighl thus be bent; Yet she had heard a hateful minor say That hosts from Troy would come in future day. And all her Tyrian towers o'erthrow — Whose empire then would spread and force its way ? er every land, and never limit know ; That things of future years were predetermined so.

Then dark forebodings filled Saturnia's mind. In the remembrance of the part she bore. When deities of heaven with men combined, In long-continued war on Ilium's shore; Nor yet have faded from her heart the sore For beauty's prize, to Venus' self decreed By Paris' judgment, given in days of yore; Her scorn and hatred of Electra's seed. And honors placed above on heaven-rapt Ganymede.

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