# Aeneid (Conington 1866)/Book 3

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BOOK III.
When harsh Omnipotence had brought The power of Asia's kings to nought, When Troy's Neptunian walls became A prostrate mass of smould'ring flame, To diverse exile we are driven In desert lands, by signs from Heaven. There in Antandros under Ide The wished-for vessels we provide, Unknowing whither Fate may lead Or what the settlement decreed, And call our forces round. The sun His summer course had scarce begun, When now my sire Anchises gave His voice to tempt the fated wave: Weeping I quit the port, the shore, The plains where Ilium stood before, And homeless launch upon the main, Son, friends, and home-gods in my train.
A realm lies near, of ample space (Lycurgus ruled it once), called Thrace, Allied of old to Ilium's powers, Its home-gods federate with ours While Fate was with us. Here I land, And here along the winding strand ​Trace out, alas! 'neath Fortune's frown, The first beginnings of a town, And from myself as founder call Æneadæ the rising wall.
To my bright mother's power divine And all the tenants of the skies, So might they speed my new design, I was performing sacrifice, And on the shore to heaven's high king A snow-white bull was slaughtering. A mound was nigh, where spear-like wood Of cornel and of myrtle stood. I sought it, and began to spoil Of that thick growth the high-heaped soil And deck the altars with its green, When lo! a ghastly sight was seen. Soon as a tree from earth I rend, Dark-flowing drops of blood descend, And stain the ground with gore: Fear shakes my frame from head to foot: A second sapling I uproot, Resolved to pierce the mystery dark: See, trickling from a second bark Blood follows as before! With many a tumult in my soul, I prayed the Dryads of the place, And king Gradivus, whose control Is felt through all the fields of Thrace, That they would meliorate the sight And make this heavy omen light. But when the third tall shaft I seize, And 'gainst the hillock press my knees— Speak shall I, or be mute?— E'en from the bottom of the mound Is heard a lamentable sound: ​'Why thus my frame, Æneas, rend? Respect at length a buried friend, Nor those pure hands pollute. Trojan, not alien, is the blood That oozes from the uptorn wood. Fly this fell soil, these greedy shores: The voice you hear is Polydore's. From my gored breast a growth of spears Its murderous vegetation rears.' I heard, fear-stricken and amazed, My speech tongue-tied, my hair upraised. This Polydore erewhile by stealth With store of delegated wealth Unhappy Priam in despair Sent to the Thracian monarch's care When first Troy felt her prowess fail, Encompassed by the leaguering pale. There, when our star its light withdraws, False to divine and human laws, The traitor joins the conqueror's cause, Lays impious hands on Polydore, And grasps by force the golden store. Fell lust of gold! abhorred, accurst! What will not men to slake such thirst? Soon as my blood regains its heat, The direful portent I repeat To Troy's chief lords, and first my sire, And then' collective voice enquire. All vote to fly from friendship's grave, Quit the curst soil, and cross the wave. So then to Polydore we pay New rites, and heap his mound with clay: Raised to the dead, two altars stand With cypress wreathed and woollen band: Around them Trojan matrons go, Their hair unbound in sign of woe: ​Bowls frothing warm with milk we pour And cups of sacrificial gore, Lay in the tomb the ghost to sleep, And thrice invoke it, loud and deep.
Then, soon as man may trust the seas, Invited by the crisp spring breeze, My comrades drag along the sand The well-dried ships, and crowd the strand: So from the harbour forth we sail, And land and town in distance fail. Encircled by a billowy ring A land there lies, the loved resort Of Neptune, the Ægæan king, And the grey queen of Nereus' court: Long time the sport of ev'ry blast O'er ocean it was wont to toss, Till grateful Phœbus moored it fast To Gyaros and high Myconos, And bade it lie unmoved, and brave The violence of wind and wave. That port, all peace, receives our fleet: We land, and hail Apollo's seat. King Anius, king and priest in one, With bay-crowned tresses hoar, Hastes to accost us, and is known Anchises' friend of yore. We grasp his friendly hand in proof Of welcome, and approach his roof. The sacred temple I adored Of immemorial stone: 'O grant us, Thymbra's gracious lord, A mansion of our own! Grant us a sure abiding place A habitation and a race. Save our new Troy, the relics these Of Achillean cruelties! ​What guide to follow? what our goal? Speak, father, and inspire our soul.' Scarce had I said, a trembling takes The sacred courts, the bays divine, The mountain to its centre shakes, The tripod echoes from the shrine: Prone as we fall with reverent fear, A heavenly utterance strikes our ear: 'Stout Dardan hearts, the realm of earth Where first your nation sprang to birth, That realm shall now receive you back: Go, seek your ancient mother's track. There shall Æneas' house, renewed For ages, rule a world subdued.' Thus Phœbus: and bewildered joy Ran murmuring through the ranks of Troy, Each asking, what the city walls Whereto the God his wanderers calls. At this my sire, revolving o'er The bygone memories of yore, 'Hear, noble chiefs, and learn,' cries he, 'The place of your expectancy. In ocean lies Jove's island, Crete, Where Ida stands, our nation's seat. A hundred cities crown the isle, And the broad fields with plenty smile. Thence Teucer, our great sire, of yore Took ship for the Rhœtean shore, If right I mind my tale, And chose his kingdom: Ilium then Not yet had risen: the tribes of men Dwelt in the lowly vale. Thence Cybele's majestic dame And Corybantian cymbals came, Thence Ida's grove, and mystic awe, And lions, trained her car to draw. ​Come then: let heaven direct our feet: Appease the winds, and sail for Crete. It lies not far: be Jove at hand, The third day's sun shall see us land.' He spoke, and rendering each his due, The victims at the altars slew, A bull to Neptune, and a bull To thee, Apollo bright, A lamb to Tempest, black of wool, To Western winds a white.
Idomeneus, we hear, has flown, Driven from his home in Cretan land: Fame tells us of an empty throne And mansions ready to our hand. Ortygia left, we skim the deeps By Naxos' Bacchanalian steeps, Olearos and Donysa green, And Parian cliffs of dazzling sheen, Pass Cyclad isles o'er ocean strown, And seas with many a land thick sown. The rowers sing merrily as we go, 'For Crete and our forefathers, ho!' Fair winds escort us o'er the tide, And soon 'neath Cretan coasts we glide.
The site determined, I lay down The groundwork of my infant town, Its name Pergamia call, And bid the nation, proud to own That title, guard their loved hearthstone, And raise the fortress wall. High on the beach their ships they draw, Then take them wives, and till the land, The while with equitable hand I portion dwelling-place and law, ​When sudden on man's feeble frame From tainted skies a sickness came, On trees and crops a poisonous breath, A year of pestilence and death. Their pleasant lives the sufferers yield, Or drag their languid limbs with pain: The dogstar burns the grassy field, And sickening crops withhold the grain. Back to Ortygia's shrine my sire O'er ocean bids us go, There sue for favour, and enquire The limit of our woe, What succour weary souls should try, And whither, if we must, to fly.
'Twas night: all life in sleep was laid, When lo! our household gods, the same Whom through the midmost of the flame From falling Ilium I conveyed, Appeared before me while I lay In slumber, bright as if in day, Where through the inserted window stream The glories of the full moonbeam; Then thus their gentle speech addressed, And set my troubled heart at rest: 'The word that Phœbus has to speak, Should you his Delian presence seek, He of his unsought bounty sends E'en by the mouth of us, your friends. We, who have followed yours and you Since Ilium was no more, We, who have sailed among your crew The swelling billows o'er, Your seed as demigods will crown, And make them an imperial town. ​Build you the walls decreed by fate, And let them, like ourselves, be great, Nor shrink, how long soe'er it be, From this your wandering o'er the sea. Change we our dwelling: not to Crete Apollo called your truant feet. There is a land, by Greece of old Surnamed Hesperia, rich its mould, Its children brave and free: Œnotrians were its settlers: fame Now gives the race its leader's name, And calls it Italy. Here Dardanus was born, our king, And old Iasius, whence we spring: Here our authentic seat. Rise, tell your sire without delay Our sentence, which let none gainsay: Search till you find the Ausonian land, And old Cortona: Jove has banned Your settlement in Crete.' Amazed by wonders heard and seen (For 'twas no dream that mocked my eyes. No—plain I seemed to recognize Their cinctured locks, their well-known mien, While at the sight chill clammy sweat Burst forth, and all my limbs were wet) That instant from my couch I rise, With voice and hands implore the skies, And offer at the household shrine Full cups of unadulterate wine. My worship ended, glad of soul, I seek my sire, and tell the whole. At once he owns the ambiguous race, The rival sires to whom we trace, And smiles that ancient lands have wrought Such new confusion in his thought: ​Then cries: 'My son, the slave too long Of Ilian destiny, One voice aforetime sang that song, Cassandra—none but she: Such fate she said, I mind it all, Was for our race in store, And oft on Italy would call, Oft on the Hesperian shore. But who could think that Trojans born Hesperia e'er would reach, Or who that heard that maid forlorn Gave credence to her speech? Yield we to Phœbus, and pursue, Admonished thus, a course more true.' He ceased, and our applauding crew Obeys him, all and each. So now, this second home resigned To the scant few we leave behind, We set our sails once more, and sweep Along the illimitable deep.
The fleet had passed into the main, And land no longer met the eye, On every side the watery plain, On every side the expanse of sky; When o'er my head a cloud there stood, With night and tempest in its womb, And all the surface of the flood Was ruffled by the incumbent gloom. At once the winds huge billows roll; The gathering waters climb the pole: We scatter, tossing o'er the deep: The thunder-clouds involve the day; Dark night has snatched the heaven away: Through rents of sky the lightnings leap: ​Thus erring from our track designed, We grope among the waters blind. E'en Palinurus cannot trace The boundary line of day and night, Or recollect his course aright Amid the undistinguished space. Three starless nights, three sunless days We welter in the blinding haze. The fourth at last the prospect clears, And smoke from distant hills appears. Drop sails, ply oars! the labouring crew Toss wide the foam, and brush the blue.
Scaped from the fury of the seas, We land upon the Strophades (Such name in Greece they bear), Isles in the vast Ionian main, Where fell Celæno and her train Of Harpies hold their lair, Since, driven from Phineus' door, they fled The tables where of old they fed. So foul a plague for human crime Ne'er issued from the Stygian slime. A maid above, a bird below: Noisome and foul the belly's flow: The hands are taloned: Famine bleak Sits ever ghastly on the cheek. Soon as we gain the port, we see Sleek heads of oxen pasturing free, And goats, without a swain to guard, Dispersed along the grassy sward. We seize our weapons, lay them dead. And call on Jove the spoil to share, Then on the winding beach we spread Our couches, and enjoy the fare; When sudden from the mountains swoop, Fierce charging down, the Harpy troop. ​Devour, contaminate, befoul, With sickening stench and hideous howl. A second time we take our seat, Deep in a hollowed rock's retreat, Protected by a leafy screen Of forestry and quivering green, There spread the tables, skin the flesh, And light our altar-fires afresh. A second time the assailants fly From other regions of the sky, With crooked claws the banquet waste, And poison whatsoe'er they taste. I charge my crews to draw the sword And battle with the fiendish horde. They act as bidden, and conceal Along the grass the glittering steel. So when the rush of wings once more Is heard along the bending shore, Misenus sounds his loud alarms From the hill's top, and calls to arms: And on we rush in novel war, These foul sea-birds to maim and mar. In vain: no weapon's stroke may cleave The texture of their feathery mail: They soar into the air, and leave On food half-gnawn their loathsome trail: All but Celæno: she, curst seer, Speaks from a rock these words of fear: 'What, would ye fight, false perjured race? Fight for the beeves your greed has slain, And unoffending Harpies chase From their hereditary reign? Now listen, and attentive lay Deep in your hearts the things I say. The fate by Jove to Phœbus shown, By Phœbus' self to me made known— ​Aye, tremble, for in me ye view The Furies' queen—I tell to you. To Italy in haste ye drive, With winds at your command: Go then, in Italy arrive, And draw your ships to land: But ere your town with walls ye fence, Fierce famine, retribution dread For this your murderous violence, Shall make you eat your boards for bread.' She spoke, and vanished 'mid the wood: Chill horror froze my comrades' blood: No more of arms: the prayer, the vow They fain would make their weapons now, Whate'er the monsters, powers divine, Or birds ill-omened and malign. With outstretched hands my father prays The Gods above, and offerings pays: 'Heaven, bar these threatenings! Heaven, avert Such horror, and protect desert!' Then bids the crews their ships unbind And stretch the mainsheet to the wind.
The south wind freshens in the sail: We hurry o'er the tide, Where'er the helmsman and the gale Conspire our course to guide: Now rises o'er the foamy flood Zacynthos with its crown of wood, Dulichium, Same, Neritos, Whose rocky sides the waves emboss: The crags of Ithaca we flee, Laertes' rugged sovereignty, Nor in our flight forget to curse The land that was Ulysses' nurse. Soon Leucas rears its cloud-capped head, And Phœbus, whom the seamen dread. ​Hither we turn our barks at last, And near his city land; The anchors from the prows are cast, The keels are on the strand.
So, given awhile on land to stay, Our lustral rites to Jove we pay, And light the votive flames, And make the shores of Actium gay With Ilium's festal games. With pride my merry comrades strip And oil them for the wrestler's grip, True to the wont of Troy: So many Argive towns o'erpast And flight 'mid circling foes held fast, O, but the thought was joy! Meantime the sun rolls round the year, And winter makes the waters drear. The brazen circle of a shield Which mighty Abas wont to wield I fasten to the temple-gate And thus my deed commemorate, 'Æneas fixes on these doors Arms won from Danaan conquerors:' Then give my crews the word to quit The port, and on their benches sit. With emulous zeal they smite the deep And o'er the wavy level sweep. Phæacia's heights from view we hide, And coast along Epirot lands: Then in Chaonia's arbour ride Nigh where Buthrotum's city stands.
Arrived, I hear a wondrous thing, A Grecian crown on Trojan brows: ​They tell me Helenus is king Of Pyrrhus' realm with Pyrrhus' spouse, And sad Andromache restored Once more to a compatriot lord. At once I burn with strong desire To greet them, and the tale enquire: So from the port I take my way, And leave my vessels in the bay. It chanced Andromache that day There in a grove without the wall Beside a mimic Simois' wave Was making funeral festival At Hector's counterfeited grave, Raised by her hands, a grassy heap, With altars twain, whereat to weep. When as she saw my near advance And marked our Trojan cognizance, Awhile distracted and amazed She stood, and stiffened as she gazed: The life-blood leaves her cheeks: She faints: at last from earth upraised In faltering tones she speaks: 'Real, is it real, the face I view, A harbinger of tidings true? Say, are you living? or if dead, Then where is Hector?' so she said, And tears in copious torrent shed, And filled the air with cries: Thus as her tide of passion flows, Few broken words I interpose: 'Aye, I am living, living still Through all extremity of ill: No dream your sense belies. But say, alas! what new estate Receives you, fallen from such a mate? ​What fortune matches the degree Of Hector's own Andromache? Still wear you Pyrrhus' nuptial yoke?' She dropped her voice, and softly spoke With lowly downcast eyes: 'O happy more than all beside, The Priameian maid, Who for her dead foe's pleasure died Beneath her city's shade, Not drawn for servitude, nor led A captive to a conqueror's bed, While we, our country laid in dust, To exile dragged o'er many a wave, Have stooped to Pyrrhus' haughty lust, His infant's mother and his slave! A Spartan marriage tempts the youth: He plights Hermione his truth; Cast off, to Helenus I fall, So wills our master, thrall to thrall. But soon Orestes, mad with crime, And wroth to lose his promised bride, Smote Pyrrhus in unguarded time, And at the altar-fire he died. On Helenus, the tyrant slain, Devolves a portion of his reign: Who calls the realm beneath his hand From Chaon's name Chaonian land, And crowns the hill, in sign of power, With Pergamus, our Dardan tower. But you—what destiny from heaven, What stress of wind your bark has driven Unknowing on our coast? And lives he yet, whom once at Troy— Ascanius? dwells there in the boy Grief for his mother lost? ​Feels he the hereditary flame His growing spirit fire At Hector's and Æneas' name, His uncle and his sire?' So poured she her impassioned wail, Still weeping on without avail, When girt with royal retinue, King Helenus appears in view, Acknowledges his friends of Troy, And leads us to his home with joy, And as our fainting hearts he cheers, With words of welcome mixes tears. I see a mimic Trojan state, A Pergamus that apes the great, A dried-up Xanthus' channel trace, And other Scæan gates embrace. Nor less my Trojan comrades share The monarch's hospitable care: In spacious cloisters entertained 'Neath the hall's roof the wine they drained, And goblets for libation hold, While the rich banquet gleams in gold.
Two days had passed: the favouring gale Invites the fleet and swells the sail: Bent on departure, I accost With words like these our sacred host: 'True son of Troy, whose heaven-taught skill Perceives the signs of Phœbus' will, The tripods, and the Clarian bays, The secret of night's starry maze, And birds, their voices and their ways, Speak—for the accordant sense of Heaven Fair presage for my course has given; Each God has charged me to explore In far-off seas Italia's shore; ​Celæno's harpy voice alone Makes prodigies and vengeance known And famine's foulest horror—say, What perils first beset my way? What counsel following may I cope With toils so great in manful hope?' Then Helenus with slaughtered kine Appeases first the powers divine, The fillets from his head Unbinds, and to Apollo's fane Conducts me, while in every vein I feel the presence dread: And thus from his prophetic tongue The message of the future rung: 'O Goddess-born!—for broad and clear The augury of your proud career, So lie the lots in Jove's dark urn: So the dread Three their spindles turn— Now listen, while, to give you ease In wandering o'er yon stranger seas And help you to the port you seek, A fragment of your fate I speak: Unknown to Helenus the rest, Or Juno locks it in his breast. Learn first that Italy, which seems So near, you grasp it in your dreams, And think to anchor in its bay, As though within,your ken it lay, A pathless path o'er leagues of foam Divides from this our distant home. First in Trinacrian water plied Your oar must tug against the tide, First must your weary galleys keep Long vigils on the Ausonian deep, Must pass the lurid lake of ghosts And skirt Ææan Circe's coasts, ​Ere, free from danger, you may found Your city on the destined ground. Now hear the tokens I impart, And store them up within your heart. When, as you roam in anxious mood Beside a still sequestered flood, 'Neath fringing holms before your eye A thirty-farrowed sow shall lie, Her white length stretching o'er the ground, Her young, as white, her teats around: That spot shall see the promised town, Shall see Troy's heavy load laid down. Nor shudder at the doom of dread That tells of eating boards for bread: Fate in her time shall find a way, And Phœbus waits on souls that pray. But, for Italia's neighbour shore, On whose near beach our billows roar, Avoid it: there in every place Has settled Argos' hated race. Here Locrian tribes, from Naryx come, Have found them an Italian home: Here o'er Salentum's conquered plains Idomeneus the Cretan reigns: While here Petilia's tiny tower Is manned by Philoctetes' power. Nay, when upon Italian land, Transported o'er the main, you stand And pay your offerings on the strand, Ere yet you light your altars, spread A purple covering o'er your head, Lest sudden bursting on your sight Some hostile presence mar the rite. Thus worship you, and thus your train, And sons unborn the rite retain. ​But when Sicilia's shore you near And dim Pelorns' strait grows clear, Seek the south coast, though long the run To make its round: the northern shun. These lands, they say, by rupture strange (So much can time's dark process change) Were cleft in sunder long agone, When erst the twain had been but one: Between them rushed the deep, and rent The island from the continent, And now with interfusing tides 'Twixt severed lands and cities glides. There Scylla guards the right-hand coast: The left is fell Charybdis' post; Thrice from the lowest gulf she draws The water down her giant jaws, Thrice sends it foaming back to day, And deluges the heaven with spray. But Scylla crouches in the gloom Deep in a cavern's monstrous womb; Thence darts her ravening mouth, and drags The helpless vessels on the crags. Above she shows a human face And breasts resembling maiden grace: Below, 'tis all a hideous whale, Wolf's belly linked to dolphin's tail. Far better past Pachynus' cape Your journey's tedious circuit shape, Than catch one glimpse of Scylla's cell And hear those grisly hellhounds yell. And now, if Helenus speak sooth, If Phœbus fill his soul with truth, One charge, one sovereign charge I press, And stamp it with reiterate stress Deep in your memory: first of all On Juno, mighty Juno, call: ​Pay vows to Juno: overbear Her queenly soul with gift and prayer: So, wafted o'er Trinacria's main, Italia you at length shall gain. There when you land at Cumæ's town, Where forests o'er Avernus frown, Your eyes shall see the frenzied maid Who spells the future in the shade Of her deep cavern, and consigns To scattered leaves her mystic lines. These, when the words of fate are traced, She leaves within her cavern placed: Awhile they rest in order ranged, The sequence and the place unchanged. But should the breeze through chance-oped door Whirl them in air 'twixt roof and floor, She lets them flutter, nor takes pain To set them in their rank again: The pilgrims unresolved return, And her prophetic threshold spurn. So do not you: nor count too dear The hours you lavish on the seer, But, though your comrades chide your stay And breezes whisper 'hence away,' Approach her humbly and entreat Herself the presage to repeat, And open of her own free choice The prisoned flow of tongue and voice. The martial tribes of Italy, The story of your wars to be, And how to face, or how to fly Each cloud that darkens on your sky, Her lips shall tell, and with success The remnant of your journey bless. Thus far may run these words of mine. Go on, and make our Troy divine.' ​So spoke the seer, and as he ends Rich presents to my vessel sends: Carved ivory and massy gold And silver stores he in the hold, And caldrons of Dodona's mould, A hauberk twined of golden chain, A helm adorned with flowing mane, Which Pyrrhus wore: nor lacks my sire Due bounty, matching his desire. He finds us horses, finds us guides, And oars and equipage provides. Meantime Anchises bids to sail, Nor longer cheat the expectant gale: And thus Apollo's seer addressed In courteous phrase his ancient guest: 'Great chief, fair Venus' honoured mate, Twice saved by heaven from Ilium's fate. See there Ausonia's coast at hand! Before your fleet it lies. Approach, but think not there to rest: No, skirt it, and pursue your quest: Far distant that Ausonian land Which Phœbus signifies: Pass on in peace,' he cries, 'pass on, Blest in the affection of your son! Why task your patience, or delay The wind fair blowing from the bay?' Andromache, as loth to part, Displays the trophies of her art, And robes Ascanius in the fold Of Phrygian mantle, wrought with gold, Nor stints her hand, but from the store Brings broidered vestments, more and more: 'Nay, take these too, and let them prove A fond memorial of the love Of Hector's sometime wife, ​Dear child of Troy, in whom alone Astyanax, my lost, my own, Survives in second life! Like yours his hands, like yours his brow, Like yours his eyes' bright sheen: And oh! he might be growing now In years as fresh and green.'
Hot tear-drops in my eyelids swell, As thus I speak my last farewell: 'Live and be blest! 'tis sweet to feel Fate's book is closed and under seal. For us, alas! that volume stern Has many another page to turn. Yours is a rest assured: no more Of ocean wave to task the oar, No far Ausonia to pursue, Still flying, flying from the view. A mimic Xanthus and a Troy Framed by yourselves your thoughts employ, Born (grant it, Heaven!) in happier day Nor offering Greece so sure a prey. If Tiber's bank 'tis mine to see And build the walls my fates decree, Then shall these kindred towns and towers, Epirot yours, Hesperian ours, Sprung from one father long ago, And partners in a common woe, Be knit together, heart and soul, In one fair Troy, one patriot whole: Such be the legacy we leave, Such bond for sons unborn to weave!'
Away we speed along the sea Beneath Ceraunian steeps, ​Where lies the way to Italy, The shortest o'er the deeps. The sun comes down, and every height Is darkened by advancing night. On earth we stretch us by the tide, His several oar at each one's side, Then take our cheer: and slumberous dews Descend upon our weary crews. Night had not climbed heaven's topmost steep, When Palinurus starts from sleep, Observes each wind with anxious care, And questions all that stirs in air: Each star that roams the etherial plain His eye has noted and explored, Arcturus, Hyads, and the Wain, And bright Orion's golden sword: He sees all calm, without a cloud; Then from the stern he signals loud. We shift our camp, attempt the way, And to the breeze our vans display. Now the red morning from the sky Had chased the starry host, When from afar dim hills we spy, Italia's lowly coast: 'Italia!' cries Achates first: 'Italia!' peals the joyous burst Of welcome from each crew: My sire Anchises wreathes with flowers A brimming cup, and calls the powers, Full on the stern in view: 'Gods of the sea, the land, the air, Waft our smooth course with breezes fair.' The winds blow freshly o'er the sky: The port grows wider to the eye, And on the cliff in prospect plain Is seen Minerva's hallowed fane. ​My comrades furl their sails, and stand, Still rowing onward, for the land. The port is hollowed in a bay, Concealed by crags that, lashed with spray, Confront the billows' roar: On each side runs a rocky line With arm extended, and the shrine Moves backward from the shore. First token of our fate, we see Four snowwhite horses pasturing free: 'War is thy portance, stranger soil, War,' cries my sire, 'the charger's toil, 'Tis war these grazers threat: Yet may e'en such one day submit To bear the yoke and champ the bit: Aye, peace may bless us yet.' Then martial Pallas we adore, The first who welcomes us to shore, And standing at the altars spread A Phrygian covering o'er our head: And mindful of the great command By Helenus expressly given, We burn the oblations of our hand To Argive Juno, queen of heaven.
Our vows all paid, again to sea We turn the vessels' head, And leave the Grecian colony, The land of doubt and dread. Thy bay, Tarentum, next we view, Herculean town, if fame say true: Against it on the steep is seen Lacinium's venerable queen, And lofty Caulon's towers appear, And Scylaceum, sailors' fear. ​Then distant darkening on the sky Trinacrian Ætna meets the eye; We hear the sea's stupendous roar And broken voices on the shore: The waters from the deep upboil, And surf and sand the depth turmoil. 'Charybdis!' cries my sire, 'behold The rocks that Helenus foretold! Haste, haste, my friends, together ply Your oars, and from destruction fly.' So said, so done: each heeds and hears: First Palinure to southward steers, And southward, southward all the rest With sail and oar their flight addressed. Now to the sky mounts up the ship, Now to the very shades we dip. Thrice in the depth we feel the shock Of billows thundering on the rock, Thrice see the spray upheaved in mist, And dewy stars by foam-drops kissed. At last, bereft of wind and sun, Upon the Cyclops' shore we run.
The port is sheltered from the blast, Its compass unconfined and vast: But Ætna with her voice of fear In weltering chaos thunders near. Now pitchy clouds she belches forth Of cinders red and vapour swarth, And from her caverns lifts on high Live balls of flame that lick the sky: Now with more dire convulsion flings Disploded rocks, her heart's rent strings, And lava torrents hurls to day, A burning gulf of fiery spray. ​'Tis said Enceladus' huge frame, Heart-stricken by the avenging flame, Is prisoned here, and underneath Gasps through each vent his sulphurous breath: And still as his tired side shifts round Trinacria echoes to the sound Through all its length, while clouds of smoke The living soul of ether choke. All night, by forest branches screened, We writhe as 'neath some torturing fiend, Nor know the horror's cause: For stars were none, nor welkin bright With heavenly fires, but blank black night The stormy moon withdraws.
And now the day-star, tricked anew, Had drawn from heaven the veil of dew: When from the wood, all ghastly wan, A stranger form, resembling man, Comes running forth, and takes its way With suppliant gesture to the bay. We turn, and look on limbs besmeared With direst filth, a length of beard, A dress with thorns held tight: In all beside, a Greek his style, Who in his country's arms erewhile Had sailed at Troy to fight. Soon as our Dardan arms he saw, Brief space he stood in wildering awe And checked his speed: then toward the shore With cries and weeping onward bore: 'By heaven and heaven's blest powers, I pray, And life's pure breath, this light of day, Receive me, Trojans: o'er the seas Transport mo wheresoe'er you please. ​I ask no farther. Aye, 'tis true, I once was of the Danaan crew, And levied war on Troy: If all too deep that crime's red stain, Then fling me piecemeal to the main And 'mid the waves destroy. If death is certain, let me die By hands that share humanity.' He ended, and before us flung About our knees in suppliance clung. His name, his race we bid him show And what the story of his woe: Anchises' self his hands extends And bids the trembler count us friends. Then by degrees he laid aside His fear, and presently replied.
'From Ithaca, my home, I came, And Achemenides my name, The comrade of Ulysses' woes: For Troy I left my father's door, Poor Adamastus—both were poor— Ah! would these fates had been as those! Me, in their eager haste to fly The scene of hideous butchery, My unreflecting countrymen Left in the Cyclop's savage den. All foul with gore that banquet-room, Immense and dreadful in its gloom. He, lofty towering, strikes the skies (Snatch him, ye Gods, from mortal eyes!): No kindly look e'er crossed his face, Ne'er oped his lips in courteous grace; The limbs of wretches are his food: He champs their flesh, and quaffs their blood. ​I saw, when his enormous hand Plucked forth two victims from our band, Swung round, and on the threshold dashed, While all the floor with blood was splashed: I saw him grind them, bleeding fresh, And close his teeth on quivering flesh: Not unrequited: such a wrong My wily chieftain brooked not long: E'en in that dire extreme of ill Ulysses was Ulysses still. For when o'ercome with sleep and wine Along the cave he lay supine, Ejecting from his monstrous maw Wine mixed, with gore and gobbets raw, We pray to Heaven, our parts dispose, And in a circle round him close, With sharpened point that eyeball pierce Which 'neath his brow glared lone and fierce, Like Argive shield or sun's broad light, And thus our comrades' death requite. But fly, unhappy, fly, and tear Your anchors from the shore: For vast as Polyphemus there Guards, feeds, and milks his fleecy car On the sea's margin make their home And o'er the lofty mountains roam A hundred Cyclops more. Three moons their circuit nigh have made, Since in wild den or woodland shade My wretched life I trail, See Cyclops stalk from rock to rock, And tremble at their footsteps' shock, And at their voices quail. Hard cornel fruits that life sustain, And grasses gathered from the plain. ​Long looking round, at last I scanned Your vessels bearing to the strand. Whate'er you proved, I vowed me yours: Enough, to scape these bloody shores. Become yourselves my slayers, and kill This destined wretch which way you will.'
E'en as he spoke, or e'er we deem, Down from the lofty rock We see the monster Polypheme Advancing 'mid his flock, In quest the well-known shore to find, Huge, awful, hideous, ghastly, blind. A pine-tree, plucked from earth, makes strong His tread, and guides his steps along. His sheep upon their master wait, Sole joy, sole solace of his fate. Soon as he touched the ocean waves And reached the level flood, Groaning and gnashing fierce, he laves His socket from the blood, And through the deepening water strides, While scarce the billows bathe his sides. With wildered haste we speed our flight, Admit the suppliant, as of right, And noiseless loose the ropes: Our quick oars sweep the blue profound: The giant hears, and toward the sound With outstretched hands he gropes. But when he grasps and grasps in vain, Still headed by the Ionian main, To heaven he lifts a monstrous roar, Which sends a shudder through the waves, Shakes to its base the Italian shore, And echoing runs through Ætna's caves. ​From rocks and woods the Cyclop host Rush startled forth, and crowd the coast. There glaring fierce we see them stand In idle rage, a hideous band, The sons of Ætna, carrying high Their towering summits to the sky: So on a height stand clustering trees, Tall oaks, or cone-clad cypresses, The stately forestry of Jove, Or Dian's venerable grove. Fierce panic bids us set our sail, And stand to catch the first fair gale. But stronger e'en than present fear The thought of Helenus the seer, Who counselled still those seas to fly Where Scylla and Charybdis lie: That path of double death we shun, And think a backward course to run. When lo! from out Pelorus' strait The northern breezes blow: We pass Pantagia's rocky gate, And Megara, where vessels wait, And Thapsus, pillowed low. So, measuring back familiar seas, Land after land before us shows The rescued Achemenides, The comrade of Ulysses' woes.
Before Sicania's harbour deep, Against Plemyrium's billowy steep, Ortygia's island lies: Alpheus, Elis' stream, they say, Beneath the seas here found his way, And now his waters interfuse With thine, fountain Arethuse, Beneath Sicilian skies. ​We pray to those high powers: and then Pass rich Helorus' stagnant fen. Pachynus' lofty cliffs we graze, Projecting o'er the main, And Camarina meets our gaze, Which fate forbad to drain, And Gela's fields, and Gela's wall, And Gela's stream, that names them all. High towering Acragas succeeds, The sire one day of generous steeds: Selinus' palms I leave behind And Lilybeum's shallows blind. Then Drepanum becomes my host, And takes me to its joyless coast. All tempest-tost and weary, there I lose my stay in every care, My sire Anchises! Snatched in vain From death, you leave me with my pain, Dear father! Not the Trojan seer In all that catalogue of fear, Not dire Celæno dared foreshow This irremediable blow! That was the limit of my woes: There all my journeyings found their close: 'Twas thence I parted, to be driven On this your coast, by will of heaven.'
So king Æneas told his tale While all beside were still, Rehearsed the fortunes of his sail, And fate's mysterious will: Then to its close his legend brought, And gladly took the rest he sought.