No More Learning

Then chosen men with the
priest of the altar in emulous haste bring roasted flesh of bulls, and
pile baskets with the gift of ground corn, and serve the wine. Aeneas
and the men of Troy with him feed on the long chines of oxen and the
entrails of the sacrifice.

After hunger is driven away and the desire of food stayed, King Evander
speaks: 'No idle superstition that knows not the gods of old hath
ordered these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of
august sanctity; saved from bitter perils, O Trojan guest, do we
worship, and [189-225]most due are the rites we inaugurate. Look now
first on this overhanging cliff of stone, where shattered masses lie
strewn, and the mountain dwelling stands desolate, and rocks are rent
away in vast ruin. Here was a cavern, awful and deep-withdrawn,
impenetrable to the sunbeams, where the monstrous half-human shape of
Cacus had his hold: the ground was ever wet with fresh slaughter, and
pallid faces of men, ghastly with gore, hung nailed on the haughty
doors. This monster was the son of Vulcan, and spouted his black fires
from his mouth as he moved in giant bulk. To us also in our desire time
bore a god's aid and arrival. For princely Alcides the avenger came
glorious in the spoils of triple Geryon slain; this way the Conqueror
drove the huge bulls, and his oxen filled the river valley. But savage
Cacus, infatuate to leave nothing undared or unhandled in craft or
crime, drives four bulls of choice shape away from their pasturage, and
as many heifers of excellent beauty. And these, that there should be no
straightforward footprints, he dragged by the tail into his cavern, the
track of their compelled path reversed, and hid them behind the screen
of rock. No marks were there to lead a seeker to the cavern. Meanwhile
the son of Amphitryon, his herds filled with food, was now breaking up
his pasturage and making ready to go. The oxen low as they depart; all
the woodland is filled with their complaint as they clamorously quit the
hills. One heifer returned the cry, and, lowing from the depth of the
dreary cave, baffled the hope of Cacus from her imprisonment. At this
the grief and choler of Alcides blazed forth dark and infuriate.
Seizing
in his hand his club of heavy knotted oak, he seeks with swift pace the
aery mountain steep. Then, as never before, did we see Cacus afraid and
his countenance troubled; he goes flying swifter than the wind and seeks
his cavern; fear wings his feet. As he shut himself in, and, bursting
the [226-260]chains, dropped the vast rock slung in iron by his
father's craft, and blocked the doorway with its pressure, lo! the
Tirynthian came in furious wrath, and, scanning all the entry, turned
his face this way and that and ground his teeth. Thrice, hot with rage,
he circles all Mount Aventine; thrice he assails the rocky portals in
vain; thrice he sinks down outwearied in the valley. There stood a sharp
rock of flint with sides cut sheer away, rising over the cavern's ridge
a vast height to see, fit haunt for foul birds to build on. This--for,
sloping from the ridge, it leaned on the left towards the river--he
loosened, urging it from the right till he tore it loose from its deep
foundations; then suddenly shook it free; with the shock the vast sky
thunders, the banks leap apart, and the amazed river recoils. But the
den, Cacus' huge palace, lay open and revealed, and the depths of gloomy
cavern were made manifest; even as though some force tearing earth apart
should unlock the infernal house, and disclose the pallid realms
abhorred of heaven, and deep down the monstrous gulf be descried where
the ghosts flutter in the streaming daylight. On him then, surprised in
unexpected light, shut in the rock's recesses and howling in strange
fashion, Alcides from above hurls missiles and calls all his arms to
aid, and presses hard on him with boughs and enormous millstones. And
he, for none other escape from peril is left, vomits from his throat
vast jets of smoke, wonderful to tell, and enwreathes his dwelling in
blind gloom, blotting view from the eyes, while in the cave's depth
night thickens with smoke-bursts in a darkness shot with fire. Alcides
broke forth in anger, and with a bound hurled himself sheer amid the
flames, where the smoke rolls billowing and voluminous, and the cloud
surges black through the enormous den. Here, as Cacus in the darkness
spouts forth his idle fires, he grasps and twines tight round him, till
his eyes start out and his throat [261-295]is drained of blood under
the strangling pressure. Straightway the doors are torn open and the
dark house laid plain; the stolen oxen and forsworn plunder are shewn
forth to heaven, and the misshapen carcase dragged forward by the feet.
Men cannot satisfy their soul with gazing on the terrible eyes, the
monstrous face and shaggy bristling chest, and the throat with its
quenched fires. Thenceforth this sacrifice is solemnised, and a younger
race have gladly kept the day; Potitius the inaugurator, and the
Pinarian family, guardians of the rites of Hercules, have set in the
grove this altar, which shall ever be called of us Most Mighty, and
shall be our mightiest evermore. Wherefore arise, O men, and enwreathe
your hair with leafy sprays, and stretch forth the cups in your hands;
call on our common god and pour the glad wine.