Funeral of Memnon

If from a female hand that virtue springs, Which to the gods and men such pleasure brings. Yet I nor honours seek, nor rites divine, Nor for more altars or more fanes repine; Oh that such trifles were the only cause From whence Aurora’s mind its anguish draws! For Memnon lost, my dearest only child, With weightier grief my heavy heart is fill’d; My warrior son! that lived but half his time, Nipp’d in the bud, and blasted in his prime; Who for his uncle early took the field, And by Achilles’ fatal spear was kill’d. To whom but Jove should I for succour come? For Jove alone could fix his cruel doom. Oh sovereign of the gods, accept my prayer, Grant my request, and soothe a mother’s care; On the deceased some solemn boon bestow, To expiate the loss, and ease my wo.”

Jove, with a nod, complied with her desire; Around the body flamed the funeral fire; The pile decreased, that lately seem’d so high, And sheets of smoke roll’d upward to the sky: As humid vapours from a marshy bog Rise by degrees, condensing into fog, That intercept the sun’s enlivening ray, And with a cloud infect the cheerful day; The sooty ashes wafted by the air, Whirl round, and thicken in a body there; Then take a form, which their own heat and fire, With active life and energy inspire. Its lightness makes it seem to fly, and soon It skims on real wings, that are its own; A real bird, it beats the breezy wind, Mix’d with a thousand sisters of the kind, That, from the same formation newly sprung, Upborne aloft on plumy pinions hung. Thrice round the pile advanced the circling throng; Thrice, with their wings, a whizzing consort rung. In the fourth flight their squadron they divide, Rank’d in two different troops, on either side: Then two and two, inspired with martial rage, From either troop in equal pairs engage.

Each combatant with beak and pounces press’d, In wrathful ire, his adversary’s breast; Each falls a victim, to preserve the fame Of that great hero whence their being came. From him their courage and their name they take; And, as they lived, they die for Memnon’s sake. Punctual to time, with each revolving year, In fresh array the champion birds appear; Again, prepared with vengeful minds, they come To bleed, in honour of the soldier’s tomb.

Therefore in others it appear’d not strange To grieve for Hecuba’s unhappy change: But poor Aurora had enough to do With her own loss, to mind another’s wo; Who still in tears her tender nature shows, Besprinkling all the world with pearly dews.

Aeneas, with his father Anchises, is hospitably entertained at Delos, by Anius the priest of Apollo⁠—After visiting the island of Phaeacia, the hero at length arrives at the dangerous rocks of Scylla.

Troy thus destroy’d, ’twas still denied by fate, The hopes of Troy should perish with the state. His sire, the son of Cytherea bore, And household gods from burning Ilium’s shore. The pious prince (a double duty paid) Each sacred burden through the flames convey’d. With young Ascanius, and this only prize, Of heaps of wealth, he from Antandros flies; But struck with horror, left the Thracian shore, Stain’d with the blood of murder’d Polydore. The Delian isle receives the banish’d train, Driven by kind gales, and favour’d by the main.

Here pious Anius, priest and monarch, reign’d, And either charge with equal care sustain’d; His subjects ruled, to Phoebus homage paid, His god obeying, and by those obey’d.

The priest displays his hospitable gate, And shows the riches of his church and state; The sacred shrubs, which eased Latona’s pain, The palm, and olive, and the votive fane. Here grateful flames with fuming incense fed, And mingled wine ambrosial odours shed; Of slaughter’d steers the crackling entrails burn’d; And then the strangers to the court return’d.