With heavy gold, and polish’d elephant;
Then Dodonaean caldrons put on board,
And ev’ry ship with sums of silver stor’d.
A trusty coat of mail to me he sent,
Thrice chain’d with gold, for use and ornament;
The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest,
That flourish’d with a plume and waving crest.
Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;
And large recruits he to my navy sends:
Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;
Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.
Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,
Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales.
“The prophet bless’d the parting crew, and last,
With words like these, his ancient friend embrac’d:
‘Old happy man, the care of gods above,
Whom heav’nly Venus honor’d with her love,
And twice preserv’d thy life, when Troy was lost,
Behold from far the wish’d Ausonian coast:
There land; but take a larger compass round,
For that before is all forbidden ground.
The shore that Phoebus has design’d for you,
At farther distance lies, conceal’d from view.
Go happy hence, and seek your new abodes,
Blest in a son, and favor’d by the gods:
For I with useless words prolong your stay,
When southern gales have summon’d you away.’
“Nor less the queen our parting thence deplor’d,
Nor was less bounteous than her Trojan lord.
A noble present to my son she brought,
A robe with flow’rs on golden tissue wrought,
A phrygian vest; and loads with gifts beside
Of precious texture, and of Asian pride.
‘Accept,’ she said, ‘these monuments of love,
Which in my youth with happier hands I wove:
Regard these trifles for the giver’s sake;
’Tis the last present Hector’s wife can make.
Thou call’st my lost Astyanax to mind;
In thee his features and his form I find:
His eyes so sparkled with a lively flame;
Such were his motions; such was all his frame;
And ah! had Heav’n so pleas’d, his years had been the same.’
“With tears I took my last adieu, and said:
‘Your fortune, happy pair, already made,
Leaves you no farther wish. My diff’rent state,
Avoiding one, incurs another fate.
To you a quiet seat the gods allow:
You have no shores to search, no seas to plow,
Nor fields of flying Italy to chase:
(Deluding visions, and a vain embrace!)
