No More Learning

Then were kings,
[330-364]and fierce Thybris with his giant bulk, from whose name we of
Italy afterwards called the Tiber river, when it lost the true name of
old, Albula. Me, cast out from my country and following the utmost
limits of the sea, Fortune the omnipotent and irreversible doom settled
in this region; and my mother the Nymph Carmentis' awful warnings and
Apollo's divine counsel drove me hither. '

Scarce was this said; next advancing he points out the altar and the
Carmental Gate, which the Romans call anciently by that name in honour
of the Nymph Carmentis, seer and soothsayer, who sang of old the coming
greatness of the Aeneadae and the glory of Pallanteum. Next he points
out the wide grove where valiant Romulus set his sanctuary, and the
Lupercal in the cool hollow of the rock, dedicate to Lycean Pan after
the manner of Parrhasia. Therewithal he shows the holy wood of
Argiletum, and calls the spot to witness as he tells the slaying of his
guest Argus. Hence he leads him to the Tarpeian house, and the Capitol
golden now, of old rough with forest thickets. Even then men trembled
before the wood and rock. 'This grove,' he cries, 'this hill with its
leafy crown, is a god's dwelling, though whose we know not; the
Arcadians believe Jove himself hath been visible, when often he shook
the darkening aegis in his hand and gathered the storm-clouds. Thou
seest these two towns likewise with walls overthrown, relics and
memorials of men of old. This fortress lord Janus built, this Saturn;
the name of this was once Janiculum, of that Saturnia. '

With such mutual words they drew nigh the house of poor Evander, and saw
scattered herds lowing on the Roman Forum and down the gay Carinae. When
they reached his dwelling, 'This threshold,' he cries, 'Alcides the
Conqueror stooped to cross; in this palace he rested. Dare thou, my
guest, to despise riches; mould thyself to [365-396]like dignity of
godhead, and come not exacting to our poverty. ' He spoke, and led tall
Aeneas under the low roof of his narrow dwelling, and laid him on a
couch of stuffed leaves and the skin of a Libyan she-bear. Night falls
and clasps the earth in her dusky wings.
But Venus, stirred in spirit by no vain mother's alarms, and moved by
the threats and stern uprisal of the Laurentines, addresses herself to
Vulcan, and in her golden bridal chamber begins thus, breathing divine
passion in her speech:

'While Argolic kings wasted in war the doomed towers of Troy, the
fortress fated to fall in hostile fires, no succour did I require for
her wretched people, no weapons of thine art and aid: nor would I task,
dear my lord, thee or thy toils for naught, though I owed many and many
a debt to the children of Priam, and had often wept the sore labour of
Aeneas. Now by Jove's commands he hath set foot in the Rutulian borders;
I now therefore come with entreaty, and ask armour of the god I worship.
For the son she bore, the tears of Nereus' daughter, of Tithonus'
consort, could melt thine heart. Look what nations are gathering, what
cities bar their gates and sharpen the sword against me for the
desolation of my children. '

The goddess ended, and, as he hesitates, clasps him round in the soft
embrace of her snowy arms. He suddenly caught the wonted flame, and the
heat known of old pierced him to the heart and overran his melting
frame: even as when, bursting from the thunder peal, a sparkling cleft
of fire shoots through the storm-clouds with dazzling light. His consort
knew, rejoiced in her wiles, and felt her beauty. Then her lord speaks,
enchained by Love the immortal:

'Why these far-fetched pleas? Whither, O goddess, is thy trust in me
gone? Had like distress been thine, [397-431]even then we might
unblamed have armed thy Trojans, nor did doom nor the Lord omnipotent
forbid Troy to stand, and Priam to survive yet ten other years. And now,
if thou purposest war, and this is thy counsel, whatever charge I can
undertake in my craft, in aught that may be made of iron or molten
electrum, whatever fire and air can do, cease thou to entreat as
doubtful of thy strength. ' These words spoken, he clasped his wife in
the desired embrace, and, sinking in her lap, wooed quiet slumber to
overspread his limbs.

Thereon, so soon as sleep, now in mid-career of waning night, had given
rest and gone; soon as a woman, whose task is to sustain life with her
distaff and the slender labours of the loom, kindles the ashes of her
slumbering fire, her toil encroaching on the night, and sets a long task
of fire-lit spinning to her maidens, that so she may keep her husband's
bed unsullied and nourish her little children,--even so the Lord of
Fire, nor slacker in his hours than she, rises from his soft couch to
the work of his smithy. An island rises by the side of Sicily and
Aeolian Lipare, steep with smoking cliffs, whereunder the vaulted and
thunderous Aetnean caverns are hollowed out for Cyclopean forges, the
strong strokes on the anvils echo in groans, ore of steel hisses in the
vaults, and the fire pants in the furnaces: the house of Vulcan, and
Vulcania the land's name. Hither now the Lord of Fire descends from
heaven's height. In the vast cavern the Cyclopes were forging iron,
Brontes and Steropes and Pyracmon with bared limbs.