|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
|
Thou art foredoom'd to view the Stygian state: If not, no labor can the tree constrain; And strength of stubborn arms and steel are vain. Besides, you know not, while you here attend, Th' unworthy fate of your unhappy friend: Breathless he lies; and his unburied ghost, Depriv'd of fun'ral rites, pollutes your host. Pay first his pious dues; and, for the dead, Two sable sheep around his hearse be led; Then, living turfs upon his body lay: This done, securely take the destin'd way, To find the regions destitute of day." She said, and held her peace. Aeneas went Sad from the cave, and full of discontent, Unknowing whom the sacred Sibyl meant. Achates, the companion of his breast, Goes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppress'd. Walking, they talk'd, and fruitlessly divin'd What friend the priestess by those words design'd. But soon they found an object to deplore: Misenus lay extended the shore; Son of the God of Winds: none so renown'd The warrior trumpet in the field to sound; With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms, And rouse to dare their fate in honorable arms. He serv'd great Hector, and was ever near, Not with his trumpet only, but his spear. But by Pelides' arms when Hector fell, He chose Aeneas; and he chose as well. Swoln with applause, and aiming still at more, He now provokes the sea gods from the shore; With envy Triton heard the martial sound, And the bold champion, for his challenge, drown'd; Then cast his mangled carcass on the strand: The gazing crowd around the body stand. All weep; but most Aeneas mourns his fate, And hastens to perform the funeral state. In altar-wise, a stately pile they rear; The basis broad below, and top advanc'd in air. An ancient wood, fit for the work design'd, (The shady covert of the salvage kind,) The Trojans found: the sounding ax is plied; Firs, pines, and pitch trees, and the tow'ring pride Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke, |
