Page:Virgil (Collins).djvu/138

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CHAPTER VII.

THE TROJANS LAND IN LATIUM.

It has been said that this poem combines in some degree the characters both of the Iliad and of the Odyssey. Up to this point we have had the wanderings and adventures of the Trojan hero: he has been the Ulysses of his own tale. Henceforth we have a tale of the camp and the battle-field, of siege and defence, and personal combat; and we are reminded, in almost every passage, of the stirring scenes of the Iliad.

Æneas, on his ascent into upper air, rejoins his crew, and the fleet, setting sail from Cumæ, enters the noble harbour of Caieta. Not that the place had any such name as yet; but there the hero buries his old nurse, and gives her name to the spot. Once more embarking, they pass the promontory of Circe, and hear, as they sail by, the roars and yells of the unhappy prisoners, changed by the spells of the sorceress into the shape of brutes, whom she holds in bondage there. They listen and shudder, and bless the favouring gale which bears them away from such perilous neighbourhood. Then, with the morrow's dawn, the fleet enters the