or whose divinity landed thee all
unwitting
on our coasts?
Virgil - Aeneid
Little Iulus shall go along with
me, and my wife follow our steps afar. You of my household, give heed to
what I say. As you leave the city there is a mound and ancient temple of
Ceres lonely on it, and hard by an aged cypress, guarded many years in
ancestral awe: to this resting-place let us gather from diverse
quarters. Thou, O father, take the sacred things and the household gods
of our ancestors in thine hand. For me, just parted from the desperate
battle, with slaughter fresh upon me, to handle them were guilt, until I
wash away in a living stream the soilure. . . . " So spoke I, and spread
over my neck and broad shoulders a tawny lion-skin for covering, and
stoop to my burden. Little Iulus, with his hand fast in mine, keeps
uneven pace after his father. Behind my wife follows. We pass on in the
shadows. And I, lately moved by no weapons launched against me, nor by
the thronging bands of my Grecian foes, am now terrified at every
breath, startled by every noise, thrilling with fear alike for my
companion and my burden.
'And now I was nearing the gates, and thought I had [731-764]outsped
all the way; when suddenly the crowded trampling of feet came to our
ears, and my father, looking forth into the darkness, cries: "My son, my
son, fly; they draw near. I espy the gleaming shields and the flicker of
brass. " At this, in my flurry and confusion, some hostile god bereft me
of my senses. For while I plunge down byways, and swerve from where the
familiar streets ran, Creusa, alas! whether, torn by fate from her
unhappy husband, she stood still, or did she mistake the way, or sink
down outwearied? I know not; and never again was she given back to our
eyes; nor did I turn to look for my lost one, or cast back a thought,
ere we were come to ancient Ceres' mound and hallowed seat; here at
last, when all gathered, one was missing, vanished from her child's and
her husband's company. What man or god did I spare in frantic
reproaches? or what crueller sight met me in our city's overthrow? I
charge my comrades with Ascanius and lord Anchises, and the gods of
Teucria, hiding them in the winding vale. Myself I regain the city,
girding on my shining armour; fixed to renew every danger, to retrace my
way throughout Troy, and fling myself again on its perils. First of all
I regain the walls and the dim gateway whence my steps had issued; I
scan and follow back my footprints with searching gaze in the night.
Everywhere my spirit shudders, dismayed at the very silence. Thence I
pass on home, if haply her feet (if haply! ) had led her thither. The
Grecians had poured in, and filled the palace. The devouring fire goes
rolling before the wind high as the roof; the flames tower over it, and
the heat surges up into the air. I move on, and revisit the citadel and
Priam's dwelling; where now in the spacious porticoes of Juno's
sanctuary, Phoenix and accursed Ulysses, chosen sentries, were guarding
the spoil. Hither from all quarters is flung in masses the treasure of
Troy torn from burning shrines, [765-798]tables of the gods, bowls of
solid gold, and raiment of the captives. Boys and cowering mothers in
long file stand round. . . . Yes, and I dared to cry abroad through the
darkness; I filled the streets with calling, and again and yet again
with vain reiterance cried piteously on Creusa. As I stormed and sought
her endlessly among the houses of the town, there rose before mine eyes
a melancholy phantom, the ghost of very Creusa, in likeness larger than
her wont. I was motionless; my hair stood up, and the accents faltered
on my tongue. Then she thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed
my distresses: "What help is there in this mad passion of grief, sweet
my husband? not without divine influence does this come to pass: nor may
it be, nor does the high lord of Olympus allow, that thou shouldest
carry Creusa hence in thy company. Long shall be thine exile, and weary
spaces of sea must thou furrow through; and thou shalt come to the land
Hesperia, where Lydian Tiber flows with soft current through rich and
populous fields. There prosperity awaits thee, and a kingdom, and a
king's daughter for thy wife. Dispel these tears for thy beloved Creusa.
Never will I look on the proud homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, or
go to be the slave of Greek matrons, I a daughter of Dardania, a
daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess. . . . But the mighty mother of the
gods keeps me in these her borders. And now farewell, and still love thy
child and mine. " This speech uttered, while I wept and would have said
many a thing, she left me and retreated into thin air. Thrice there was
I fain to lay mine arms round her neck; thrice the vision I vainly
clasped fled out of my hands, even as the light breezes, or most like to
fluttering sleep. So at last, when night is spent, I revisit my
comrades.
'And here I find a marvellous great company, newly flocked in, mothers
and men, a people gathered for exile, [799-804]a pitiable crowd. From
all quarters they are assembled, ready in heart and fortune, to
whatsoever land I will conduct them overseas. And now the morning star
rose over the high ridges of Ida, and led on the day; and the Grecians
held the gateways in leaguer, nor was any hope of help given. I
withdrew, and raising my father up, I sought the mountain. '
BOOK THIRD
THE STORY OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WANDERING
'After heaven's lords pleased to overthrow the state of Asia and Priam's
guiltless people, and proud Ilium fell, and Neptunian Troy smokes all
along the ground, we are driven by divine omens to seek distant places
of exile in waste lands. Right under Antandros and the mountains of
Phrygian Ida we build a fleet, uncertain whither the fates carry us or
where a resting-place is given, and gather the people together. Scarcely
had the first summer set in, when lord Anchises bids us spread our sails
to fortune, and weeping I leave the shores and havens of my country, and
the plains where once was Troy. I sail to sea an exile, with my comrades
and son and the gods of household and state.
'A land of vast plains lies apart, the home of Mavors, in Thracian
tillage, and sometime under warrior Lycurgus' reign; friendly of old to
Troy, and their gods in alliance while our fortune lasted. Hither I
pass, and on the winding shore I lay under thwarting fates the first
foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, Aeneadae.
'I was paying sacrifice to my mother, daughter of Dione, and to all the
gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore
to the high lord of [22-54]the heavenly people. Haply there lay a mound
hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with
shafts of myrtle. I drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood
from the soil, that I might cover the altar with leafy boughs, I see a
portent ominous and wonderful to tell. For from the first tree whose
roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood
trickle, and gore stains the earth. An icy shudder shakes my limbs, and
my blood curdles chill with terror. Yet from another I go on again to
tear away a tough shoot, fully to fathom its secret; yet from another
black blood follows out of the bark. With many searchings of heart I
prayed the woodland nymphs, and lord Gradivus, who rules in the Getic
fields, to make the sight propitious as was meet and lighten the omen.
But when I assail a third spearshaft with a stronger effort, pulling
with knees pressed against the sand; shall I speak or be silent? from
beneath the mound is heard a pitiable moan, and a voice is uttered to my
ears: "Woe's me, why rendest thou me, Aeneas? spare me at last in the
tomb, spare pollution to thine innocent hands. Troy bore me; not alien
to thee am I, nor this blood that oozes from the stem. Ah, fly the cruel
land, fly the greedy shore! For I am Polydorus; here the iron harvest of
weapons hath covered my pierced body, and shot up in sharp javelins. "
Then indeed, borne down with dubious terror, I was motionless, my hair
stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue.
'This Polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless Priam sent in
secret to the nurture of the Thracian king, when now he was losing trust
in the arms of Dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about. The
king, when the Teucrian power was broken and fortune withdrew, following
Agamemnon's estate and triumphant arms, [55-87]severs every bond of
duty; murders Polydorus, and lays strong hands on the gold. O accursed
hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts! When the
terror left my senses, I lay the divine tokens before the chosen princes
of the people, with my father at their head, and demand their judgment.
All are of one mind, to leave the guilty land, and abandoning a polluted
home, to let the gales waft our fleets. So we bury Polydorus anew, and
the earth is heaped high over his mound; altars are reared to his ghost,
sad with dusky chaplets and black cypress; and around are the Ilian
women with hair unbound in their fashion. We offer bubbling bowls of
warm milk and cups of consecrated blood, and lay the spirit to rest in
her tomb, and with loud voice utter the last call.
'Thereupon, so soon as ocean may be trusted, and the winds leave the
seas in quiet, and the soft whispering south wind calls seaward, my
comrades launch their ships and crowd the shores. We put out from
harbour, and lands and towns sink away. There lies in mid sea a holy
land, most dear to the mother of the Nereids and Neptune of Aegae, which
strayed about coast and strand till the Archer god in his affection
chained it fast from high Myconos and Gyaros, and made it lie immoveable
and slight the winds. Hither I steer; and it welcomes my weary crew to
the quiet shelter of a safe haven. We disembark and worship Apollo's
town. Anius the king, king at once of the people and priest of Phoebus,
his brows garlanded with fillets and consecrated laurel, comes to meet
us; he knows Anchises, his friend of old; we clasp hands in welcome, and
enter his palace. I worshipped the god's temple, an ancient pile of
stone. "Lord of Thymbra, give us an enduring dwelling-place; grant a
house and family to thy weary servants, and a city to abide: keep Troy's
second fortress, the remnant left of the Grecians and merciless
Achilles. Whom follow [88-121]we? or whither dost thou bid us go, where
fix our seat? Grant an omen, O lord, and inspire our minds. "
'Scarcely had I spoken thus; suddenly all seemed to shake, all the
courts and laurels of the god, the whole hill to be stirred round about,
and the cauldron to moan in the opening sanctuary. We sink low on the
ground, and a voice is borne to our ears: "Stubborn race of Dardanus,
the same land that bore you by parentage of old shall receive you again
on her bountiful breast. Seek out your ancient mother; hence shall the
house of Aeneas sway all regions, his children's children and they who
shall be born of them. " Thus Phoebus; and mingled outcries of great
gladness uprose; all ask, what is that city? whither calls Phoebus our
wandering, and bids us return? Then my father, unrolling the records of
men of old, "Hear, O princes," says he, "and learn your hopes. In mid
ocean lies Crete, the island of high Jove, wherein is mount Ida, the
cradle of our race. An hundred great towns are inhabited in that opulent
realm; from it our forefather Teucer of old, if I recall the tale
aright, sailed to the Rhoetean coasts and chose a place for his kingdom.
Not yet was Ilium nor the towers of Pergama reared; they dwelt in the
valley bottoms. Hence came our Lady, haunter of Cybele, the Corybantic
cymbals and the grove of Ida; hence the rites of inviolate secrecy, and
the lions yoked under the chariot of their mistress. Up then, and let us
follow where divine commandments lead; let us appease the winds, and
seek the realm of Gnosus. Nor is it a far journey away. Only be Jupiter
favourable, the third day shall bring our fleet to anchor on the Cretan
coast. " So spoke he, and slew fit sacrifice on the altars, a bull to
Neptune, a bull to thee, fair Apollo, a black sheep to Tempest, a white
to the prosperous West winds.
'Rumour flies that Idomeneus the captain is driven [122-154]forth of
his father's realm, and the shores of Crete are abandoned, that the
houses are void of foes and the dwellings lie empty to our hand. We
leave the harbour of Ortygia, and fly along the main, by the revel-trod
ridges of Naxos, by green Donusa, Olearos and snow-white Paros, and the
sea-strewn Cyclades, threading the racing channels among the crowded
lands. The seamen's clamour rises in emulous dissonance; each cheers his
comrade: _Seek we Crete and our forefathers. _ A wind rising astern
follows us forth on our way, and we glide at last to the ancient
Curetean coast. So I set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town,
and call it Pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to
cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. And even now the
ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages
and among their new fields; I was giving statutes and homesteads; when
suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and
pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. They left
their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; Sirius scorched
the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest
denied sustenance. My father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again
to Phoebus in his Ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue
he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to
our woes, whither bend our course.
'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred
images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had
borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to
stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light
where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus
addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo
hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters
here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and
thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have
traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to
heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou
prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long
wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did
the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete.
There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms
and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that
a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is
our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the
first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine
aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia.
Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields. "
'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber;
but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and
gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I
spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay
pure offering on the hearth. The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell
Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and
twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among
ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of
Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she
prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia,
often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should
come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy?
Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better [189-222]way he counsels. "
So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling
likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and
run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.
'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky
all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead
carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed.
Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are
tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and
rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon
fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves.
Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky,
nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind
darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till
the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills
and sending up wreaths of smoke. The sails drop; we swing back to the
oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep
through the green water. The shores of the Strophades first receive me
thus won from the waves, Strophades the Greek name they bear, islands
lying in the great Ionian sea, which boding Celaeno and the other
Harpies inhabit since Phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in
terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any
fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters;
winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and
clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . .
'When borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of
oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the
grass. We attack them with the sword, and call the gods and Jove himself
to share our [223-258]spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore
and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us,
swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud
clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch,
spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep
recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland,
we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind
ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with
clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. Then
I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race.
Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and
hide their shields out of sight. So when they swooped clamorously down
along the winding shore, Misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on
the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to
set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. But they take
no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring
into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the
spoil they had half consumed. Celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights
on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents:
'"War is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, O children of
Laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless Harpies
from their ancestral kingdom? Take then to heart and fix fast these
words of mine; which the Lord omnipotent foretold to Phoebus, Phoebus
Apollo to me, I eldest born of the Furies reveal to you. Italy is your
goal; wooing the winds you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours
unhindered. Yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this
murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your
tables with gnawing teeth. "
'She spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of [259-293]the
wood. But my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their
spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they
bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things
ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with
outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods,
avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the
righteous! " Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose
the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the
foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. Now
wooded Zacynthos appears amid the waves, and Dulichium and Same and
Neritos' sheer rocks. We fly past the cliffs of Ithaca, Laertes' realm,
and curse the land, fostress of cruel Ulysses. Soon too Mount Leucata's
cloudy peaks are sighted, and Apollo dreaded of sailors. Hither we steer
wearily, and stand in to the little town. The anchor is cast from the
prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach.
'So at last having attained to land beyond our hopes, we purify
ourselves in Jove's worship, and kindle altars of offering, and make the
Actian shore gay with the games of Ilium. My comrades strip, and,
slippery with oil, exercise their ancestral contests; glad to have got
past so many Argive towns, and held on their flight through the
encircling foe. Meanwhile the sun rounds the great circle of the year,
and icy winter ruffles the waters with Northern gales. I fix against the
doorway a hollow shield of brass, that tall Abas had borne, and mark the
story with a verse: _These arms Aeneas from the conquering Greeks. _ Then
I bid leave the harbour and sit down at the thwarts; emulously my
comrades strike the water, and sweep through the seas. Soon we see the
cloud-capped Phaeacian towers sink away, skirt the shores of Epirus, and
enter the Chaonian haven and approach high Buthrotum town.
[294-328]'Here the rumour of a story beyond belief comes on our ears;
Helenus son of Priam is reigning over Greek towns, master of the bride
and sceptre of Pyrrhus the Aeacid; and Andromache hath again fallen to a
husband of her people. I stood amazed; and my heart kindled with
marvellous desire to accost him and learn of so strange a fortune. I
advance from the harbour, leaving the fleet ashore; just when haply
Andromache, in a grove before the town, by the waters of a feigned
Simois, was pouring libation to the dust, and calling Hector's ghost to
a tomb with his name, on an empty turfed green with two altars that she
had consecrated, a wellspring of tears. When she caught sight of me
coming, and saw distractedly the encircling arms of Troy,
terror-stricken at the vision marvellously shewn, her gaze fixed, and
the heat left her frame. She swoons away, and hardly at last speaks
after long interval: "Comest thou then a real face, a real messenger to
me, goddess-born? livest thou? or if sweet light is fled, ah, where is
Hector? " She spoke, and bursting into tears filled all the place with
her crying. Just a few words I force up, and deeply moved gasp out in
broken accents: "I live indeed, I live on through all extremities; doubt
not, for real are the forms thou seest . . . Alas! after such an
husband, what fate receives thy fall? or what worthier fortune revisits
thee? Dost thou, Hector's Andromache, keep bonds of marriage with
Pyrrhus? " She cast down her countenance, and spoke with lowered voice:
'"O single in happy eminence that maiden daughter of Priam, sentenced to
die under high Troy town at an enemy's grave, who never bore the shame
of the lot, nor came a captive to her victorious master's bed! We,
sailing over alien seas from our burning land, have endured the
haughty youthful pride of Achilles' seed, and borne children in
slavery: he thereafter, wooing Leda's Hermione and a Lacedaemonian
[329-363]marriage, passed me over to Helenus' keeping, a bondwoman to a
bondman. But him Orestes, aflame with passionate desire for his stolen
bride, and driven by the furies of crime, catches unguarded and murders
at his ancestral altars. At Neoptolemus' death a share of his realm fell
to Helenus' hands, who named the plains Chaonian, and called all the
land Chaonia after Chaon of Troy, and built withal a Pergama and this
Ilian citadel on the hills. But to thee how did winds, how fates give
passage?
or whose divinity landed thee all unwitting on our coasts? what
of the boy Ascanius? lives he yet, and draws breath, thy darling, whom
Troy's . . . Yet hath the child affection for his lost mother? is he
roused to the valour of old and the spirit of manhood by his father
Aeneas, by his uncle Hector? "
'Such words she poured forth weeping, and prolonged the vain wail; when
the hero Helenus son of Priam approaches from the town with a great
company, knows us for his kin, and leads us joyfully to his gates,
shedding a many tears at every word. I advance and recognise a little
Troy, and a copy of the great Pergama, and a dry brook with the name of
Xanthus, and clasp a Scaean gateway. Therewithal my Teucrians make
holiday in the friendly town. The king entertained them in his spacious
colonnades; in the central hall they poured goblets of wine in libation,
and held the cups while the feast was served on gold.
'And now a day and another day hath sped; the breezes woo our sails, and
the canvas blows out to the swelling south. With these words I accost
the prophet, and thus make request:
'"Son of Troy, interpreter of the gods, whose sense is open to Phoebus'
influences, his tripods and laurels, to stars and tongues of birds and
auguries of prosperous flight, tell me now,--for the voice of revelation
was all favourable to my course, and all divine influence counselled me
to [364-396]seek Italy and explore remote lands; only Celaeno the Harpy
prophesies of strange portents, a horror to tell, and cries out of wrath
and bale and foul hunger,--what perils are the first to shun? or in what
guidance may I overcome these sore labours? "
'Hereat Helenus, first suing for divine favour with fit sacrifice of
steers, and unbinding from his head the chaplets of consecration, leads
me in his hand to thy courts, O Phoebus, thrilled with the fulness of
the deity, and then utters these prophetic words from his augural lips:
'"Goddess-born: since there is clear assurance that under high omens
thou dost voyage through the deep; so the king of the gods allots
destiny and unfolds change; this is the circle of ordinance; a few
things out of many I will unfold to thee in speech, that so thou mayest
more safely traverse the seas of thy sojourn, and find rest in the
Ausonian haven; for Helenus is forbidden by the destinies to know, and
by Juno daughter of Saturn to utter more: first of all, the Italy thou
deemest now nigh, and close at hand, unwitting! the harbours thou
wouldst enter, far are they sundered by a long and trackless track
through length of lands. First must the Trinacrian wave clog thine oar,
and thy ships traverse the salt Ausonian plain, by the infernal pools
and Aeaean Circe's isle, ere thou mayest build thy city in safety on a
peaceful land. I will tell thee the token, and do thou keep it close in
thine heart. When in thy perplexity, beside the wave of a sequestered
river, a great sow shall be discovered lying under the oaks on the
brink, with her newborn litter of thirty, couched white on the ground,
her white brood about her teats; that shall be the place of the city,
that the appointed rest from thy toils. Neither shrink thou at the gnawn
tables that await thee; the fates will find a way, and Apollo aid thy
call. These lands moreover, on this nearest border of the Italian shore
[397-432]that our own sea's tide washes, flee thou: evil Greeks dwell
in all their towns. Here the Locrians of Narycos have set their city,
and here Lyctian Idomeneus beset the Sallentine plains with soldiery;
here is the town of the Meliboean captain, Philoctetes' little Petelia
fenced by her wall. Nay, when thy fleets have crossed overseas and lie
at anchor, when now thou rearest altars and payest vows on the beach,
veil thine hair with a purple garment for covering, that no hostile face
at thy divine worship may meet thee amid the holy fires and make void
the omens. This fashion of sacrifice keep thou, thyself and thy
comrades, and let thy children abide in this pure observance. But when
at thy departure the wind hath borne thee to the Sicilian coast, and the
barred straits of Pelorus open out, steer for the left-hand country and
the long circuit of the seas on the left hand; shun the shore and water
on thy right. These lands, they say, of old broke asunder, torn and
upheaved by vast force, when either country was one and undivided; the
ocean burst in between, cutting off with its waves the Hesperian from
the Sicilian coast, and with narrow tide washes tilth and town along the
severance of shore. On the right Scylla keeps guard, on the left
unassuaged Charybdis, who thrice swallows the vast flood sheer down her
swirling gulf, and ever again hurls it upward, lashing the sky with
water. But Scylla lies prisoned in her cavern's blind recesses,
thrusting forth her mouth and drawing ships upon the rocks. In front her
face is human, and her breast fair as a maiden's to the waist down;
behind she is a sea-dragon of monstrous frame, with dolphins' tails
joined on her wolf-girt belly. Better to track the goal of Trinacrian
Pachynus, lingering and wheeling round through long spaces, than once
catch sight of misshapen Scylla deep in her dreary cavern, and of the
rocks that ring to her sea-coloured hounds. Moreover, if
[433-466]Helenus hath aught of foresight or his prophecy of assurance,
if Apollo fills his spirit with the truth, this one thing, goddess-born,
one thing for all will I foretell thee, and again and again repeat my
counsel: to great Juno's deity be thy first prayer and worship; to Juno
utter thy willing vows, and overcome thy mighty mistress with gifts and
supplications; so at last thou shalt leave Trinacria behind, and be sped
in triumph to the Italian borders. When borne hither thou drawest nigh
the Cymaean city, the haunted lakes and rustling woods of Avernus, thou
shalt behold the raving prophetess who deep in the rock chants of fate,
and marks down her words on leaves. What verses she writes down on them,
the maiden sorts into order and shuts behind her in the cave; they stay
in their places unstirred and quit not their rank. But when at the turn
of the hinge the light wind from the doorway stirs them, and disarranges
the delicate foliage, never after does she trouble to capture them as
they flutter about the hollow rock, nor restore their places or join the
verses; men depart without counsel, and hate the Sibyl's dwelling. Here
let no waste in delay be of such account to thee (though thy company
chide, and the passage call thy sails strongly to the deep, and thou
mayest fill out their folds to thy desire) that thou do not approach the
prophetess, and plead with prayers that she herself utter her oracles
and deign to loose the accents from her lips. The nations of Italy and
the wars to come, and the fashion whereby every toil may be avoided or
endured, she shall unfold to thee, and grant her worshipper prosperous
passage. Thus far is our voice allowed to counsel thee: go thy way, and
exalt Troy to heaven by thy deeds. "
'This the seer uttered with friendly lips; then orders gifts to be
carried to my ships, of heavy gold and sawn ivory, and loads the hulls
with massy silver and cauldrons [467-502]of Dodona, a mail coat
triple-woven with hooks of gold, and a helmet splendid with spike and
tressed plumes, the armour of Neoptolemus. My father too hath his gifts.
Horses besides he brings, and grooms . . . fills up the tale of our
oarsmen, and equips my crews with arms.
'Meanwhile Anchises bade the fleet set their sails, that the fair wind
might meet no delay. Him Phoebus' interpreter accosts with high
courtesy: "Anchises, honoured with the splendour of Venus' espousal, the
gods' charge, twice rescued from the fallen towers of Troy, lo! the land
of Ausonia is before thee: sail thou and seize it. And yet needs must
thou float past it on the sea; far away lies the quarter of Ausonia that
is revealed of Apollo. Go," he continues, "happy in thy son's affection:
why do I run on further, and delay the rising winds in talk? " Andromache
too, sad at this last parting, brings figured raiment with woof of gold,
and a Phrygian scarf for Ascanius, and wearies not in courtesy, loading
him with gifts from the loom. "Take these too," so says she, "my child,
to be memorials to thee of my hands, and testify long hence the love of
Andromache wife of Hector. Take these last gifts of thy kinsfolk, O sole
surviving likeness to me of my own Astyanax! Such was he, in eyes and
hands and features; and now his equal age were growing into manhood like
thine. "
'To them as I departed I spoke with starting tears: "Live happily, as
they do whose fortunes are perfected! We are summoned ever from fate to
fate. For you there is rest in store, and no ocean floor to furrow, no
ever-retreating Ausonian fields to pursue. You see a pictured Xanthus,
and a Troy your own hands have built; with better omens, I pray, and to
be less open to the Greeks. If ever I enter Tiber and Tiber's bordering
fields, and see a city granted to my nation, then of these kindred towns
[503-537]and allied peoples in Epirus and Hesperia, which have the same
Dardanus for founder, and whose story is one, of both will our hearts
make a single Troy. Let that charge await our posterity. "
'We put out to sea, keeping the Ceraunian mountains close at hand,
whence is the shortest passage and seaway to Italy. The sun sets
meanwhile, and the dusky hills grow dim. We choose a place, and fling
ourselves on the lap of earth at the water's edge, and, allotting the
oars, spread ourselves on the dry beach for refreshment: the dew of
slumber falls on our weary limbs. Not yet had Night driven of the Hours
climbed her mid arch; Palinurus rises lightly from his couch, explores
all the winds, and listens to catch a breeze; he marks the
constellations gliding together through the silent sky, Arcturus, the
rainy Hyades and the twin Oxen, and scans Orion in his armour of gold.
When he sees the clear sky quite unbroken, he gives from the stern his
shrill signal; we disencamp and explore the way, and spread the wings of
our sails. And now reddening Dawn had chased away the stars, when we
descry afar dim hills and the low line of Italy. Achates first raises
the cry of _Italy_; and with joyous shouts my comrades salute Italy.
Then lord Anchises enwreathed a great bowl and filled it up with wine;
and called on the gods, standing high astern . . . "Gods sovereign over
sea and land and weather! bring wind to ease our way, and breathe
favourably. " The breezes freshen at his prayer, and now the harbour
opens out nearer at hand, and a temple appears on the Fort of Minerva.
My comrades furl the sails and swing the prows to shore. The harbour is
scooped into an arch by the Eastern flood; reefs run out and foam with
the salt spray; itself it lies concealed; turreted walls of rock let
down their arms on either hand, and the temple retreats from the beach.
Here, an inaugural sight, four horses of snowy [538-570]whiteness are
grazing abroad on the grassy plain. And lord Anchises: "War dost thou
carry, land of our sojourn; horses are armed in war, and menace of war
is in this herd. But yet these same beasts are wont in time to enter
harness, and carry yoke and bit in concord; there is hope of peace too,"
says he. Then we pray to the holy deity, Pallas of the clangorous arms,
the first to welcome our cheers. And before the altars we veil our heads
in Phrygian garments, and duly, after the counsel Helenus had urged
deepest on us, pay the bidden burnt-sacrifice to Juno of Argos.
'Without delay, once our vows are fully paid, we round to the arms of
our sailyards and leave the dwellings and menacing fields of the Grecian
people. Next is descried the bay of Tarentum, town, if rumour is true,
of Hercules. Over against it the goddess of Lacinium rears her head,
with the towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum wrecker of ships. Then
Trinacrian Aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and
we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken
noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with
sand. And lord Anchises: "Of a surety this is that Charybdis; of these
cliffs, these awful rocks did Helenus prophesy. Out, O comrades, and
rise together to the oars. " Even as bidden they do; and first Palinurus
swung the gurgling prow leftward through the water; to the left all our
squadron bent with oar and wind. We are lifted skyward on the crescent
wave, and again sunk deep into the nether world as the water is sucked
away. Thrice amid their rocky caverns the cliffs uttered a cry; thrice
we see the foam flung out, and the stars through a dripping veil.
Meanwhile the wind falls with sundown; and weary and ignorant of the way
we glide on to the Cyclopes' coast.
'There lies a harbour large and unstirred by the winds'
[571-604]entrance; but nigh it Aetna thunders awfully in wrack, and
ever and again hurls a black cloud into the sky, smoking with boiling
pitch and embers white hot, and heaves balls of flame flickering up to
the stars: ever and again vomits out on high crags from the torn
entrails of the mountain, tosses up masses of molten rock with a groan,
and boils forth from the bottom. Rumour is that this mass weighs down
the body of Enceladus, half-consumed by the thunderbolt, and mighty
Aetna laid over him suspires the flame that bursts from her furnaces;
and so often as he changes his weary side, all Trinacria shudders and
moans, veiling the sky in smoke. That night we spend in cover of the
forest among portentous horrors, and see not from what source the noise
comes. For neither did the stars show their fires, nor was the vault of
constellated sky clear; but vapours blotted heaven, and the moon was
held in a storm-cloud through dead of night.
'And now the morrow was rising in the early east, and the dewy darkness
rolled away from the sky by Dawn, when sudden out of the forest advances
a human shape strange and unknown, worn with uttermost hunger and
pitiably attired, and stretches entreating hands towards the shore. We
look back. Filthy and wretched, with shaggy beard and a coat pinned
together with thorns, he was yet a Greek, and had been sent of old to
Troy in his father's arms. And he, when he saw afar the Dardanian habits
and armour of Troy, hung back a little in terror at the sight, and
stayed his steps; then ran headlong to the shore with weeping and
prayers: "By the heavens I beseech you, by the heavenly powers and this
luminous sky that gives us breath, take me up, O Trojans, carry me away
to any land soever, and it will be enough. I know I am one out of the
Grecian fleets, I confess I warred against the household gods of Ilium;
for that, if our wrong and guilt is so great, throw [605-639]me
piecemeal on the flood or plunge me in the waste sea. If I do perish,
gladly will I perish at human hands. " He ended; and clung clasping our
knees and grovelling at them. We encourage him to tell who he is and of
what blood born, and reveal how Fortune pursues him since then. Lord
Anchises after little delay gives him his hand, and strengthens his
courage by visible pledge. At last, laying aside his terror, he speaks
thus:
'"I am from an Ithacan home, Achemenides by name, set out for Troy in
luckless Ulysses' company; poor was my father Adamastus, and would God
fortune had stayed thus! Here my comrades abandoned me in the Cyclops'
vast cave, mindless of me while they hurry away from the barbarous
gates. It is a house of gore and blood-stained feasts, dim and huge
within. Himself he is great of stature and knocks at the lofty sky
(gods, take away a curse like this from earth! ) to none gracious in
aspect or courteous of speech. He feeds on the flesh and dark blood of
wretched men. I myself saw, when he caught the bodies of two of us with
his great hand, and lying back in the middle of the cave crushed them on
the rock, and the courts splashed and swam with gore; I saw when he
champed the flesh adrip with dark clots of blood, and the warm limbs
quivered under his teeth. Yet not unavenged. Ulysses brooked not this,
nor even in such straits did the Ithacan forget himself. For so soon as
he, gorged with his feast and buried in wine, lay with bent neck
sprawling huge over the cave, in his sleep vomiting gore and gobbets
mixed with wine and blood, we, praying to the great gods and with parts
allotted, pour at once all round him, and pierce with a sharp weapon the
huge eye that lay sunk single under his savage brow, in fashion of an
Argolic shield or the lamp of the moon; and at last we exultingly avenge
the ghosts of our comrades. But fly, O wretched men, fly [640-674]and
pluck the cable from the beach. . . . For even in the shape and stature
of Polyphemus, when he shuts his fleeced flocks and drains their udders
in the cave's covert, an hundred other horrible Cyclopes dwell all about
this shore and stray on the mountain heights. Thrice now does the horned
moon fill out her light, while I linger in life among desolate lairs and
haunts of wild beasts in the woodland, and from a rock survey the giant
Cyclopes and shudder at their cries and echoing feet. The boughs yield a
miserable sustenance, berries and stony sloes, and plants torn up by the
root feed me. Sweeping all the view, I at last espied this fleet
standing in to shore. On it, whatsoever it were, I cast myself; it is
enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death
you will, destroy this life of mine. "
'Scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see
shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, Polyphemus himself seeking
the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight.
A pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. His fleeced
sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . After
he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the
blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans;
and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the
wave wet his towering sides. We hurry far away in precipitate flight,
with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the
cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. He heard,
and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. But when he may in no
wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the Ionian waves in pursuit, he
raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the
deep land of Italy was startled, and Aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. But
the tribe of the [675-709]Cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills,
run to the harbour and fill the shore. We descry the Aetnean brotherhood
standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a
dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air
or coned cypresses, a high forest of Jove or covert of Diana. Sharp fear
urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails
to the favouring wind. Yet Helenus' commands counsel that our course
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand. We are resolved to turn our canvas back. And lo! from the
narrow fastness of Pelorus the North wind comes down and reaches us. I
sail past Pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the Megarian bay, and
low-lying Thapsus. Such names did Achemenides, of luckless Ulysses'
company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning
shores.
'Stretched in front of a bay of Sicily lies an islet over against
wavebeat Plemyrium; they of old called it Ortygia. Hither Alpheus the
river of Elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the
sea, and now through thy well-head, Arethusa, mingles with the Sicilian
waves. We adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence I
cross the fertile soil of Helorus in the marsh. Next we graze the high
reefs and jutting rocks of Pachynus; and far off appears Camarina,
forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the Geloan plains, and vast
Gela named after its river. Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder
of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with
granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the
difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum. Thereon Drepanum receives
me in its haven and joyless border. Here, so many tempestuous seas
outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, Anchises
is [710-718]lost to me. Here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in
weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom. Not Helenus the
prophet, though he counselled of many a terror, not boding Celaeno
foretold me of this grief. This was the last agony, this the goal of the
long ways; thence it was I had departed when God landed me on your
coasts. '
Thus lord Aeneas with all attent retold alone the divine doom and the
history of his goings. At last he was hushed, and here in silence made
an end.
BOOK FOURTH
THE LOVE OF DIDO, AND HER END
But the Queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound
with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. Again and again his
own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and
accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to
her limbs. The morrow's dawn bore the torch of Phoebus across the earth,
and had rolled away the dewy darkness from the sky, when, scarce
herself, she thus opens her confidence to her sister:
'Anna, my sister, such dreams of terror thrill me through! What guest
unknown is this who hath entered our dwelling? How high his mien! how
brave in heart as in arms! I believe it well, with no vain assurance,
his blood is divine. Fear proves the vulgar spirit. Alas, by what
destinies is he driven! what wars outgone he chronicled! Were my mind
not planted, fixed and immoveable, to ally myself to none in wedlock
since my love of old was false to me in the treachery of death; were I
not sick to the heart of bridal torch and chamber, to this temptation
alone I might haply yield. Anna, I will confess it; since Sychaeus mine
husband met his piteous doom, and our household was shattered by a
brother's murder, he only hath [22-55]touched mine heart and stirred
the balance of my soul. I know the prints of the ancient flame. But
rather, I pray, may earth first yawn deep for me, or the Lord omnipotent
hurl me with his thunderbolt into gloom, the pallid gloom and profound
night of Erebus, ere I soil thee, mine honour, or unloose thy laws. He
took my love away who made me one with him long ago; he shall keep it
with him, and guard it in the tomb. ' She spoke, and welling tears filled
the bosom of her gown.
Anna replies: 'O dearer than the daylight to thy sister, wilt thou
waste, sad and alone, all thy length of youth, and know not the
sweetness of motherhood, nor love's bounty? Deemest thou the ashes care
for that, or the ghost within the tomb? Be it so: in days gone by no
wooers bent thy sorrow, not in Libya, not ere then in Tyre; Iarbas was
slighted, and other princes nurtured by the triumphal land of Africa;
wilt thou contend so with a love to thy liking? nor does it cross thy
mind whose are these fields about thy dwelling? On this side are the
Gaetulian towns, a race unconquerable in war; the reinless Numidian
riders and the grim Syrtis hem thee in; on this lies a thirsty tract of
desert, swept by the raiders of Barca. Why speak of the war gathering
from Tyre, and thy brother's menaces? . . . With gods' auspices to my
thinking, and with Juno's favour, hath the Ilian fleet held on hither
before the gale. What a city wilt thou discern here, O sister! what a
realm will rise on such a union! the arms of Troy ranged with ours, what
glory will exalt the Punic state! Do thou only, asking divine favour
with peace-offerings, be bounteous in welcome and draw out reasons for
delay, while the storm rages at sea and Orion is wet, and his ships are
shattered and the sky unvoyageable. ' With these words she made the fire
of love flame up in her spirit, put hope in her wavering soul, and let
honour slip away.
[56-90]First they visit the shrines, and desire grace from altar to
altar; they sacrifice sheep fitly chosen to Ceres the Lawgiver, to
Phoebus and lord Lyaeus, to Juno before all, guardian of the marriage
bond. Dido herself, excellent in beauty, holds the cup in her hand, and
pours libation between the horns of a milk-white cow, or moves in state
to the rich altars before the gods' presences, day by day renewing her
gifts, and gazing athirst into the breasts of cattle laid open to take
counsel from the throbbing entrails. Ah, witless souls of soothsayers!
how may vows or shrines help her madness? all the while the subtle flame
consumes her inly, and deep in her breast the wound is silent and alive.
Stung to misery, Dido wanders in frenzy all down the city, even as an
arrow-stricken deer, whom, far and heedless amid the Cretan woodland, a
shepherd archer hath pierced and left the flying steel in her unaware;
she ranges in flight the Dictaean forest lawns; fast in her side clings
the deadly reed. Now she leads Aeneas with her through the town, and
displays her Sidonian treasure and ordered city; she essays to speak,
and breaks off half-way in utterance. Now, as day wanes, she seeks the
repeated banquet, and again madly pleads to hear the agonies of Ilium,
and again hangs on the teller's lips. Thereafter, when all are gone
their ways, and the dim moon in turn quenches her light, and the setting
stars counsel to sleep, alone in the empty house she mourns, and flings
herself on the couch he left: distant she hears and sees him in the
distance; or enthralled by the look he has of his father, she holds
Ascanius on her lap, if so she may steal the love she may not utter. No
more do the unfinished towers rise, no more do the people exercise in
arms, nor work for safety in war on harbour or bastion; the works hang
broken off, vast looming walls and engines towering into the sky.
So soon as she perceives her thus fast in the toils, and [91-124]madly
careless of her name, Jove's beloved wife, daughter of Saturn, accosts
Venus thus:
'Noble indeed is the fame and splendid the spoils you win, thou and that
boy of thine, and mighty the renown of deity, if two gods have
vanquished one woman by treachery. Nor am I so blind to thy terror of
our town, thine old suspicion of the high house of Carthage. But what
shall be the end? or why all this contest now? Nay, rather let us work
an enduring peace and a bridal compact. Thou hast what all thy soul
desired; Dido is on fire with love, and hath caught the madness through
and through.
me, and my wife follow our steps afar. You of my household, give heed to
what I say. As you leave the city there is a mound and ancient temple of
Ceres lonely on it, and hard by an aged cypress, guarded many years in
ancestral awe: to this resting-place let us gather from diverse
quarters. Thou, O father, take the sacred things and the household gods
of our ancestors in thine hand. For me, just parted from the desperate
battle, with slaughter fresh upon me, to handle them were guilt, until I
wash away in a living stream the soilure. . . . " So spoke I, and spread
over my neck and broad shoulders a tawny lion-skin for covering, and
stoop to my burden. Little Iulus, with his hand fast in mine, keeps
uneven pace after his father. Behind my wife follows. We pass on in the
shadows. And I, lately moved by no weapons launched against me, nor by
the thronging bands of my Grecian foes, am now terrified at every
breath, startled by every noise, thrilling with fear alike for my
companion and my burden.
'And now I was nearing the gates, and thought I had [731-764]outsped
all the way; when suddenly the crowded trampling of feet came to our
ears, and my father, looking forth into the darkness, cries: "My son, my
son, fly; they draw near. I espy the gleaming shields and the flicker of
brass. " At this, in my flurry and confusion, some hostile god bereft me
of my senses. For while I plunge down byways, and swerve from where the
familiar streets ran, Creusa, alas! whether, torn by fate from her
unhappy husband, she stood still, or did she mistake the way, or sink
down outwearied? I know not; and never again was she given back to our
eyes; nor did I turn to look for my lost one, or cast back a thought,
ere we were come to ancient Ceres' mound and hallowed seat; here at
last, when all gathered, one was missing, vanished from her child's and
her husband's company. What man or god did I spare in frantic
reproaches? or what crueller sight met me in our city's overthrow? I
charge my comrades with Ascanius and lord Anchises, and the gods of
Teucria, hiding them in the winding vale. Myself I regain the city,
girding on my shining armour; fixed to renew every danger, to retrace my
way throughout Troy, and fling myself again on its perils. First of all
I regain the walls and the dim gateway whence my steps had issued; I
scan and follow back my footprints with searching gaze in the night.
Everywhere my spirit shudders, dismayed at the very silence. Thence I
pass on home, if haply her feet (if haply! ) had led her thither. The
Grecians had poured in, and filled the palace. The devouring fire goes
rolling before the wind high as the roof; the flames tower over it, and
the heat surges up into the air. I move on, and revisit the citadel and
Priam's dwelling; where now in the spacious porticoes of Juno's
sanctuary, Phoenix and accursed Ulysses, chosen sentries, were guarding
the spoil. Hither from all quarters is flung in masses the treasure of
Troy torn from burning shrines, [765-798]tables of the gods, bowls of
solid gold, and raiment of the captives. Boys and cowering mothers in
long file stand round. . . . Yes, and I dared to cry abroad through the
darkness; I filled the streets with calling, and again and yet again
with vain reiterance cried piteously on Creusa. As I stormed and sought
her endlessly among the houses of the town, there rose before mine eyes
a melancholy phantom, the ghost of very Creusa, in likeness larger than
her wont. I was motionless; my hair stood up, and the accents faltered
on my tongue. Then she thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed
my distresses: "What help is there in this mad passion of grief, sweet
my husband? not without divine influence does this come to pass: nor may
it be, nor does the high lord of Olympus allow, that thou shouldest
carry Creusa hence in thy company. Long shall be thine exile, and weary
spaces of sea must thou furrow through; and thou shalt come to the land
Hesperia, where Lydian Tiber flows with soft current through rich and
populous fields. There prosperity awaits thee, and a kingdom, and a
king's daughter for thy wife. Dispel these tears for thy beloved Creusa.
Never will I look on the proud homes of the Myrmidons or Dolopians, or
go to be the slave of Greek matrons, I a daughter of Dardania, a
daughter-in-law of Venus the goddess. . . . But the mighty mother of the
gods keeps me in these her borders. And now farewell, and still love thy
child and mine. " This speech uttered, while I wept and would have said
many a thing, she left me and retreated into thin air. Thrice there was
I fain to lay mine arms round her neck; thrice the vision I vainly
clasped fled out of my hands, even as the light breezes, or most like to
fluttering sleep. So at last, when night is spent, I revisit my
comrades.
'And here I find a marvellous great company, newly flocked in, mothers
and men, a people gathered for exile, [799-804]a pitiable crowd. From
all quarters they are assembled, ready in heart and fortune, to
whatsoever land I will conduct them overseas. And now the morning star
rose over the high ridges of Ida, and led on the day; and the Grecians
held the gateways in leaguer, nor was any hope of help given. I
withdrew, and raising my father up, I sought the mountain. '
BOOK THIRD
THE STORY OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WANDERING
'After heaven's lords pleased to overthrow the state of Asia and Priam's
guiltless people, and proud Ilium fell, and Neptunian Troy smokes all
along the ground, we are driven by divine omens to seek distant places
of exile in waste lands. Right under Antandros and the mountains of
Phrygian Ida we build a fleet, uncertain whither the fates carry us or
where a resting-place is given, and gather the people together. Scarcely
had the first summer set in, when lord Anchises bids us spread our sails
to fortune, and weeping I leave the shores and havens of my country, and
the plains where once was Troy. I sail to sea an exile, with my comrades
and son and the gods of household and state.
'A land of vast plains lies apart, the home of Mavors, in Thracian
tillage, and sometime under warrior Lycurgus' reign; friendly of old to
Troy, and their gods in alliance while our fortune lasted. Hither I
pass, and on the winding shore I lay under thwarting fates the first
foundations of a city, and from my own name fashion its name, Aeneadae.
'I was paying sacrifice to my mother, daughter of Dione, and to all the
gods, so to favour the work begun, and slew a shining bull on the shore
to the high lord of [22-54]the heavenly people. Haply there lay a mound
hard at hand, crowned with cornel thickets and bristling dense with
shafts of myrtle. I drew near; and essaying to tear up the green wood
from the soil, that I might cover the altar with leafy boughs, I see a
portent ominous and wonderful to tell. For from the first tree whose
roots are rent away and broken from the ground, drops of black blood
trickle, and gore stains the earth. An icy shudder shakes my limbs, and
my blood curdles chill with terror. Yet from another I go on again to
tear away a tough shoot, fully to fathom its secret; yet from another
black blood follows out of the bark. With many searchings of heart I
prayed the woodland nymphs, and lord Gradivus, who rules in the Getic
fields, to make the sight propitious as was meet and lighten the omen.
But when I assail a third spearshaft with a stronger effort, pulling
with knees pressed against the sand; shall I speak or be silent? from
beneath the mound is heard a pitiable moan, and a voice is uttered to my
ears: "Woe's me, why rendest thou me, Aeneas? spare me at last in the
tomb, spare pollution to thine innocent hands. Troy bore me; not alien
to thee am I, nor this blood that oozes from the stem. Ah, fly the cruel
land, fly the greedy shore! For I am Polydorus; here the iron harvest of
weapons hath covered my pierced body, and shot up in sharp javelins. "
Then indeed, borne down with dubious terror, I was motionless, my hair
stood up, and the accents faltered on my tongue.
'This Polydorus once with great weight of gold had hapless Priam sent in
secret to the nurture of the Thracian king, when now he was losing trust
in the arms of Dardania, and saw his city leaguered round about. The
king, when the Teucrian power was broken and fortune withdrew, following
Agamemnon's estate and triumphant arms, [55-87]severs every bond of
duty; murders Polydorus, and lays strong hands on the gold. O accursed
hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts! When the
terror left my senses, I lay the divine tokens before the chosen princes
of the people, with my father at their head, and demand their judgment.
All are of one mind, to leave the guilty land, and abandoning a polluted
home, to let the gales waft our fleets. So we bury Polydorus anew, and
the earth is heaped high over his mound; altars are reared to his ghost,
sad with dusky chaplets and black cypress; and around are the Ilian
women with hair unbound in their fashion. We offer bubbling bowls of
warm milk and cups of consecrated blood, and lay the spirit to rest in
her tomb, and with loud voice utter the last call.
'Thereupon, so soon as ocean may be trusted, and the winds leave the
seas in quiet, and the soft whispering south wind calls seaward, my
comrades launch their ships and crowd the shores. We put out from
harbour, and lands and towns sink away. There lies in mid sea a holy
land, most dear to the mother of the Nereids and Neptune of Aegae, which
strayed about coast and strand till the Archer god in his affection
chained it fast from high Myconos and Gyaros, and made it lie immoveable
and slight the winds. Hither I steer; and it welcomes my weary crew to
the quiet shelter of a safe haven. We disembark and worship Apollo's
town. Anius the king, king at once of the people and priest of Phoebus,
his brows garlanded with fillets and consecrated laurel, comes to meet
us; he knows Anchises, his friend of old; we clasp hands in welcome, and
enter his palace. I worshipped the god's temple, an ancient pile of
stone. "Lord of Thymbra, give us an enduring dwelling-place; grant a
house and family to thy weary servants, and a city to abide: keep Troy's
second fortress, the remnant left of the Grecians and merciless
Achilles. Whom follow [88-121]we? or whither dost thou bid us go, where
fix our seat? Grant an omen, O lord, and inspire our minds. "
'Scarcely had I spoken thus; suddenly all seemed to shake, all the
courts and laurels of the god, the whole hill to be stirred round about,
and the cauldron to moan in the opening sanctuary. We sink low on the
ground, and a voice is borne to our ears: "Stubborn race of Dardanus,
the same land that bore you by parentage of old shall receive you again
on her bountiful breast. Seek out your ancient mother; hence shall the
house of Aeneas sway all regions, his children's children and they who
shall be born of them. " Thus Phoebus; and mingled outcries of great
gladness uprose; all ask, what is that city? whither calls Phoebus our
wandering, and bids us return? Then my father, unrolling the records of
men of old, "Hear, O princes," says he, "and learn your hopes. In mid
ocean lies Crete, the island of high Jove, wherein is mount Ida, the
cradle of our race. An hundred great towns are inhabited in that opulent
realm; from it our forefather Teucer of old, if I recall the tale
aright, sailed to the Rhoetean coasts and chose a place for his kingdom.
Not yet was Ilium nor the towers of Pergama reared; they dwelt in the
valley bottoms. Hence came our Lady, haunter of Cybele, the Corybantic
cymbals and the grove of Ida; hence the rites of inviolate secrecy, and
the lions yoked under the chariot of their mistress. Up then, and let us
follow where divine commandments lead; let us appease the winds, and
seek the realm of Gnosus. Nor is it a far journey away. Only be Jupiter
favourable, the third day shall bring our fleet to anchor on the Cretan
coast. " So spoke he, and slew fit sacrifice on the altars, a bull to
Neptune, a bull to thee, fair Apollo, a black sheep to Tempest, a white
to the prosperous West winds.
'Rumour flies that Idomeneus the captain is driven [122-154]forth of
his father's realm, and the shores of Crete are abandoned, that the
houses are void of foes and the dwellings lie empty to our hand. We
leave the harbour of Ortygia, and fly along the main, by the revel-trod
ridges of Naxos, by green Donusa, Olearos and snow-white Paros, and the
sea-strewn Cyclades, threading the racing channels among the crowded
lands. The seamen's clamour rises in emulous dissonance; each cheers his
comrade: _Seek we Crete and our forefathers. _ A wind rising astern
follows us forth on our way, and we glide at last to the ancient
Curetean coast. So I set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town,
and call it Pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to
cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. And even now the
ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages
and among their new fields; I was giving statutes and homesteads; when
suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and
pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. They left
their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; Sirius scorched
the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest
denied sustenance. My father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again
to Phoebus in his Ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue
he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to
our woes, whither bend our course.
'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred
images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had
borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to
stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light
where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus
addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo
hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters
here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and
thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have
traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to
heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou
prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long
wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did
the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete.
There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms
and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that
a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is
our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the
first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine
aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia.
Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields. "
'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber;
but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and
gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I
spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay
pure offering on the hearth. The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell
Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and
twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among
ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of
Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she
prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia,
often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should
come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy?
Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better [189-222]way he counsels. "
So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling
likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and
run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.
'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky
all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead
carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed.
Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are
tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and
rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon
fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves.
Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky,
nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind
darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till
the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills
and sending up wreaths of smoke. The sails drop; we swing back to the
oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep
through the green water. The shores of the Strophades first receive me
thus won from the waves, Strophades the Greek name they bear, islands
lying in the great Ionian sea, which boding Celaeno and the other
Harpies inhabit since Phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in
terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any
fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters;
winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and
clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . .
'When borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of
oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the
grass. We attack them with the sword, and call the gods and Jove himself
to share our [223-258]spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore
and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us,
swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud
clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch,
spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep
recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland,
we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind
ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with
clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. Then
I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race.
Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and
hide their shields out of sight. So when they swooped clamorously down
along the winding shore, Misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on
the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to
set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. But they take
no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring
into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the
spoil they had half consumed. Celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights
on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents:
'"War is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, O children of
Laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless Harpies
from their ancestral kingdom? Take then to heart and fix fast these
words of mine; which the Lord omnipotent foretold to Phoebus, Phoebus
Apollo to me, I eldest born of the Furies reveal to you. Italy is your
goal; wooing the winds you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours
unhindered. Yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this
murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your
tables with gnawing teeth. "
'She spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of [259-293]the
wood. But my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their
spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they
bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things
ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with
outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods,
avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the
righteous! " Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose
the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the
foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. Now
wooded Zacynthos appears amid the waves, and Dulichium and Same and
Neritos' sheer rocks. We fly past the cliffs of Ithaca, Laertes' realm,
and curse the land, fostress of cruel Ulysses. Soon too Mount Leucata's
cloudy peaks are sighted, and Apollo dreaded of sailors. Hither we steer
wearily, and stand in to the little town. The anchor is cast from the
prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach.
'So at last having attained to land beyond our hopes, we purify
ourselves in Jove's worship, and kindle altars of offering, and make the
Actian shore gay with the games of Ilium. My comrades strip, and,
slippery with oil, exercise their ancestral contests; glad to have got
past so many Argive towns, and held on their flight through the
encircling foe. Meanwhile the sun rounds the great circle of the year,
and icy winter ruffles the waters with Northern gales. I fix against the
doorway a hollow shield of brass, that tall Abas had borne, and mark the
story with a verse: _These arms Aeneas from the conquering Greeks. _ Then
I bid leave the harbour and sit down at the thwarts; emulously my
comrades strike the water, and sweep through the seas. Soon we see the
cloud-capped Phaeacian towers sink away, skirt the shores of Epirus, and
enter the Chaonian haven and approach high Buthrotum town.
[294-328]'Here the rumour of a story beyond belief comes on our ears;
Helenus son of Priam is reigning over Greek towns, master of the bride
and sceptre of Pyrrhus the Aeacid; and Andromache hath again fallen to a
husband of her people. I stood amazed; and my heart kindled with
marvellous desire to accost him and learn of so strange a fortune. I
advance from the harbour, leaving the fleet ashore; just when haply
Andromache, in a grove before the town, by the waters of a feigned
Simois, was pouring libation to the dust, and calling Hector's ghost to
a tomb with his name, on an empty turfed green with two altars that she
had consecrated, a wellspring of tears. When she caught sight of me
coming, and saw distractedly the encircling arms of Troy,
terror-stricken at the vision marvellously shewn, her gaze fixed, and
the heat left her frame. She swoons away, and hardly at last speaks
after long interval: "Comest thou then a real face, a real messenger to
me, goddess-born? livest thou? or if sweet light is fled, ah, where is
Hector? " She spoke, and bursting into tears filled all the place with
her crying. Just a few words I force up, and deeply moved gasp out in
broken accents: "I live indeed, I live on through all extremities; doubt
not, for real are the forms thou seest . . . Alas! after such an
husband, what fate receives thy fall? or what worthier fortune revisits
thee? Dost thou, Hector's Andromache, keep bonds of marriage with
Pyrrhus? " She cast down her countenance, and spoke with lowered voice:
'"O single in happy eminence that maiden daughter of Priam, sentenced to
die under high Troy town at an enemy's grave, who never bore the shame
of the lot, nor came a captive to her victorious master's bed! We,
sailing over alien seas from our burning land, have endured the
haughty youthful pride of Achilles' seed, and borne children in
slavery: he thereafter, wooing Leda's Hermione and a Lacedaemonian
[329-363]marriage, passed me over to Helenus' keeping, a bondwoman to a
bondman. But him Orestes, aflame with passionate desire for his stolen
bride, and driven by the furies of crime, catches unguarded and murders
at his ancestral altars. At Neoptolemus' death a share of his realm fell
to Helenus' hands, who named the plains Chaonian, and called all the
land Chaonia after Chaon of Troy, and built withal a Pergama and this
Ilian citadel on the hills. But to thee how did winds, how fates give
passage?
or whose divinity landed thee all unwitting on our coasts? what
of the boy Ascanius? lives he yet, and draws breath, thy darling, whom
Troy's . . . Yet hath the child affection for his lost mother? is he
roused to the valour of old and the spirit of manhood by his father
Aeneas, by his uncle Hector? "
'Such words she poured forth weeping, and prolonged the vain wail; when
the hero Helenus son of Priam approaches from the town with a great
company, knows us for his kin, and leads us joyfully to his gates,
shedding a many tears at every word. I advance and recognise a little
Troy, and a copy of the great Pergama, and a dry brook with the name of
Xanthus, and clasp a Scaean gateway. Therewithal my Teucrians make
holiday in the friendly town. The king entertained them in his spacious
colonnades; in the central hall they poured goblets of wine in libation,
and held the cups while the feast was served on gold.
'And now a day and another day hath sped; the breezes woo our sails, and
the canvas blows out to the swelling south. With these words I accost
the prophet, and thus make request:
'"Son of Troy, interpreter of the gods, whose sense is open to Phoebus'
influences, his tripods and laurels, to stars and tongues of birds and
auguries of prosperous flight, tell me now,--for the voice of revelation
was all favourable to my course, and all divine influence counselled me
to [364-396]seek Italy and explore remote lands; only Celaeno the Harpy
prophesies of strange portents, a horror to tell, and cries out of wrath
and bale and foul hunger,--what perils are the first to shun? or in what
guidance may I overcome these sore labours? "
'Hereat Helenus, first suing for divine favour with fit sacrifice of
steers, and unbinding from his head the chaplets of consecration, leads
me in his hand to thy courts, O Phoebus, thrilled with the fulness of
the deity, and then utters these prophetic words from his augural lips:
'"Goddess-born: since there is clear assurance that under high omens
thou dost voyage through the deep; so the king of the gods allots
destiny and unfolds change; this is the circle of ordinance; a few
things out of many I will unfold to thee in speech, that so thou mayest
more safely traverse the seas of thy sojourn, and find rest in the
Ausonian haven; for Helenus is forbidden by the destinies to know, and
by Juno daughter of Saturn to utter more: first of all, the Italy thou
deemest now nigh, and close at hand, unwitting! the harbours thou
wouldst enter, far are they sundered by a long and trackless track
through length of lands. First must the Trinacrian wave clog thine oar,
and thy ships traverse the salt Ausonian plain, by the infernal pools
and Aeaean Circe's isle, ere thou mayest build thy city in safety on a
peaceful land. I will tell thee the token, and do thou keep it close in
thine heart. When in thy perplexity, beside the wave of a sequestered
river, a great sow shall be discovered lying under the oaks on the
brink, with her newborn litter of thirty, couched white on the ground,
her white brood about her teats; that shall be the place of the city,
that the appointed rest from thy toils. Neither shrink thou at the gnawn
tables that await thee; the fates will find a way, and Apollo aid thy
call. These lands moreover, on this nearest border of the Italian shore
[397-432]that our own sea's tide washes, flee thou: evil Greeks dwell
in all their towns. Here the Locrians of Narycos have set their city,
and here Lyctian Idomeneus beset the Sallentine plains with soldiery;
here is the town of the Meliboean captain, Philoctetes' little Petelia
fenced by her wall. Nay, when thy fleets have crossed overseas and lie
at anchor, when now thou rearest altars and payest vows on the beach,
veil thine hair with a purple garment for covering, that no hostile face
at thy divine worship may meet thee amid the holy fires and make void
the omens. This fashion of sacrifice keep thou, thyself and thy
comrades, and let thy children abide in this pure observance. But when
at thy departure the wind hath borne thee to the Sicilian coast, and the
barred straits of Pelorus open out, steer for the left-hand country and
the long circuit of the seas on the left hand; shun the shore and water
on thy right. These lands, they say, of old broke asunder, torn and
upheaved by vast force, when either country was one and undivided; the
ocean burst in between, cutting off with its waves the Hesperian from
the Sicilian coast, and with narrow tide washes tilth and town along the
severance of shore. On the right Scylla keeps guard, on the left
unassuaged Charybdis, who thrice swallows the vast flood sheer down her
swirling gulf, and ever again hurls it upward, lashing the sky with
water. But Scylla lies prisoned in her cavern's blind recesses,
thrusting forth her mouth and drawing ships upon the rocks. In front her
face is human, and her breast fair as a maiden's to the waist down;
behind she is a sea-dragon of monstrous frame, with dolphins' tails
joined on her wolf-girt belly. Better to track the goal of Trinacrian
Pachynus, lingering and wheeling round through long spaces, than once
catch sight of misshapen Scylla deep in her dreary cavern, and of the
rocks that ring to her sea-coloured hounds. Moreover, if
[433-466]Helenus hath aught of foresight or his prophecy of assurance,
if Apollo fills his spirit with the truth, this one thing, goddess-born,
one thing for all will I foretell thee, and again and again repeat my
counsel: to great Juno's deity be thy first prayer and worship; to Juno
utter thy willing vows, and overcome thy mighty mistress with gifts and
supplications; so at last thou shalt leave Trinacria behind, and be sped
in triumph to the Italian borders. When borne hither thou drawest nigh
the Cymaean city, the haunted lakes and rustling woods of Avernus, thou
shalt behold the raving prophetess who deep in the rock chants of fate,
and marks down her words on leaves. What verses she writes down on them,
the maiden sorts into order and shuts behind her in the cave; they stay
in their places unstirred and quit not their rank. But when at the turn
of the hinge the light wind from the doorway stirs them, and disarranges
the delicate foliage, never after does she trouble to capture them as
they flutter about the hollow rock, nor restore their places or join the
verses; men depart without counsel, and hate the Sibyl's dwelling. Here
let no waste in delay be of such account to thee (though thy company
chide, and the passage call thy sails strongly to the deep, and thou
mayest fill out their folds to thy desire) that thou do not approach the
prophetess, and plead with prayers that she herself utter her oracles
and deign to loose the accents from her lips. The nations of Italy and
the wars to come, and the fashion whereby every toil may be avoided or
endured, she shall unfold to thee, and grant her worshipper prosperous
passage. Thus far is our voice allowed to counsel thee: go thy way, and
exalt Troy to heaven by thy deeds. "
'This the seer uttered with friendly lips; then orders gifts to be
carried to my ships, of heavy gold and sawn ivory, and loads the hulls
with massy silver and cauldrons [467-502]of Dodona, a mail coat
triple-woven with hooks of gold, and a helmet splendid with spike and
tressed plumes, the armour of Neoptolemus. My father too hath his gifts.
Horses besides he brings, and grooms . . . fills up the tale of our
oarsmen, and equips my crews with arms.
'Meanwhile Anchises bade the fleet set their sails, that the fair wind
might meet no delay. Him Phoebus' interpreter accosts with high
courtesy: "Anchises, honoured with the splendour of Venus' espousal, the
gods' charge, twice rescued from the fallen towers of Troy, lo! the land
of Ausonia is before thee: sail thou and seize it. And yet needs must
thou float past it on the sea; far away lies the quarter of Ausonia that
is revealed of Apollo. Go," he continues, "happy in thy son's affection:
why do I run on further, and delay the rising winds in talk? " Andromache
too, sad at this last parting, brings figured raiment with woof of gold,
and a Phrygian scarf for Ascanius, and wearies not in courtesy, loading
him with gifts from the loom. "Take these too," so says she, "my child,
to be memorials to thee of my hands, and testify long hence the love of
Andromache wife of Hector. Take these last gifts of thy kinsfolk, O sole
surviving likeness to me of my own Astyanax! Such was he, in eyes and
hands and features; and now his equal age were growing into manhood like
thine. "
'To them as I departed I spoke with starting tears: "Live happily, as
they do whose fortunes are perfected! We are summoned ever from fate to
fate. For you there is rest in store, and no ocean floor to furrow, no
ever-retreating Ausonian fields to pursue. You see a pictured Xanthus,
and a Troy your own hands have built; with better omens, I pray, and to
be less open to the Greeks. If ever I enter Tiber and Tiber's bordering
fields, and see a city granted to my nation, then of these kindred towns
[503-537]and allied peoples in Epirus and Hesperia, which have the same
Dardanus for founder, and whose story is one, of both will our hearts
make a single Troy. Let that charge await our posterity. "
'We put out to sea, keeping the Ceraunian mountains close at hand,
whence is the shortest passage and seaway to Italy. The sun sets
meanwhile, and the dusky hills grow dim. We choose a place, and fling
ourselves on the lap of earth at the water's edge, and, allotting the
oars, spread ourselves on the dry beach for refreshment: the dew of
slumber falls on our weary limbs. Not yet had Night driven of the Hours
climbed her mid arch; Palinurus rises lightly from his couch, explores
all the winds, and listens to catch a breeze; he marks the
constellations gliding together through the silent sky, Arcturus, the
rainy Hyades and the twin Oxen, and scans Orion in his armour of gold.
When he sees the clear sky quite unbroken, he gives from the stern his
shrill signal; we disencamp and explore the way, and spread the wings of
our sails. And now reddening Dawn had chased away the stars, when we
descry afar dim hills and the low line of Italy. Achates first raises
the cry of _Italy_; and with joyous shouts my comrades salute Italy.
Then lord Anchises enwreathed a great bowl and filled it up with wine;
and called on the gods, standing high astern . . . "Gods sovereign over
sea and land and weather! bring wind to ease our way, and breathe
favourably. " The breezes freshen at his prayer, and now the harbour
opens out nearer at hand, and a temple appears on the Fort of Minerva.
My comrades furl the sails and swing the prows to shore. The harbour is
scooped into an arch by the Eastern flood; reefs run out and foam with
the salt spray; itself it lies concealed; turreted walls of rock let
down their arms on either hand, and the temple retreats from the beach.
Here, an inaugural sight, four horses of snowy [538-570]whiteness are
grazing abroad on the grassy plain. And lord Anchises: "War dost thou
carry, land of our sojourn; horses are armed in war, and menace of war
is in this herd. But yet these same beasts are wont in time to enter
harness, and carry yoke and bit in concord; there is hope of peace too,"
says he. Then we pray to the holy deity, Pallas of the clangorous arms,
the first to welcome our cheers. And before the altars we veil our heads
in Phrygian garments, and duly, after the counsel Helenus had urged
deepest on us, pay the bidden burnt-sacrifice to Juno of Argos.
'Without delay, once our vows are fully paid, we round to the arms of
our sailyards and leave the dwellings and menacing fields of the Grecian
people. Next is descried the bay of Tarentum, town, if rumour is true,
of Hercules. Over against it the goddess of Lacinium rears her head,
with the towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum wrecker of ships. Then
Trinacrian Aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and
we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken
noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with
sand. And lord Anchises: "Of a surety this is that Charybdis; of these
cliffs, these awful rocks did Helenus prophesy. Out, O comrades, and
rise together to the oars. " Even as bidden they do; and first Palinurus
swung the gurgling prow leftward through the water; to the left all our
squadron bent with oar and wind. We are lifted skyward on the crescent
wave, and again sunk deep into the nether world as the water is sucked
away. Thrice amid their rocky caverns the cliffs uttered a cry; thrice
we see the foam flung out, and the stars through a dripping veil.
Meanwhile the wind falls with sundown; and weary and ignorant of the way
we glide on to the Cyclopes' coast.
'There lies a harbour large and unstirred by the winds'
[571-604]entrance; but nigh it Aetna thunders awfully in wrack, and
ever and again hurls a black cloud into the sky, smoking with boiling
pitch and embers white hot, and heaves balls of flame flickering up to
the stars: ever and again vomits out on high crags from the torn
entrails of the mountain, tosses up masses of molten rock with a groan,
and boils forth from the bottom. Rumour is that this mass weighs down
the body of Enceladus, half-consumed by the thunderbolt, and mighty
Aetna laid over him suspires the flame that bursts from her furnaces;
and so often as he changes his weary side, all Trinacria shudders and
moans, veiling the sky in smoke. That night we spend in cover of the
forest among portentous horrors, and see not from what source the noise
comes. For neither did the stars show their fires, nor was the vault of
constellated sky clear; but vapours blotted heaven, and the moon was
held in a storm-cloud through dead of night.
'And now the morrow was rising in the early east, and the dewy darkness
rolled away from the sky by Dawn, when sudden out of the forest advances
a human shape strange and unknown, worn with uttermost hunger and
pitiably attired, and stretches entreating hands towards the shore. We
look back. Filthy and wretched, with shaggy beard and a coat pinned
together with thorns, he was yet a Greek, and had been sent of old to
Troy in his father's arms. And he, when he saw afar the Dardanian habits
and armour of Troy, hung back a little in terror at the sight, and
stayed his steps; then ran headlong to the shore with weeping and
prayers: "By the heavens I beseech you, by the heavenly powers and this
luminous sky that gives us breath, take me up, O Trojans, carry me away
to any land soever, and it will be enough. I know I am one out of the
Grecian fleets, I confess I warred against the household gods of Ilium;
for that, if our wrong and guilt is so great, throw [605-639]me
piecemeal on the flood or plunge me in the waste sea. If I do perish,
gladly will I perish at human hands. " He ended; and clung clasping our
knees and grovelling at them. We encourage him to tell who he is and of
what blood born, and reveal how Fortune pursues him since then. Lord
Anchises after little delay gives him his hand, and strengthens his
courage by visible pledge. At last, laying aside his terror, he speaks
thus:
'"I am from an Ithacan home, Achemenides by name, set out for Troy in
luckless Ulysses' company; poor was my father Adamastus, and would God
fortune had stayed thus! Here my comrades abandoned me in the Cyclops'
vast cave, mindless of me while they hurry away from the barbarous
gates. It is a house of gore and blood-stained feasts, dim and huge
within. Himself he is great of stature and knocks at the lofty sky
(gods, take away a curse like this from earth! ) to none gracious in
aspect or courteous of speech. He feeds on the flesh and dark blood of
wretched men. I myself saw, when he caught the bodies of two of us with
his great hand, and lying back in the middle of the cave crushed them on
the rock, and the courts splashed and swam with gore; I saw when he
champed the flesh adrip with dark clots of blood, and the warm limbs
quivered under his teeth. Yet not unavenged. Ulysses brooked not this,
nor even in such straits did the Ithacan forget himself. For so soon as
he, gorged with his feast and buried in wine, lay with bent neck
sprawling huge over the cave, in his sleep vomiting gore and gobbets
mixed with wine and blood, we, praying to the great gods and with parts
allotted, pour at once all round him, and pierce with a sharp weapon the
huge eye that lay sunk single under his savage brow, in fashion of an
Argolic shield or the lamp of the moon; and at last we exultingly avenge
the ghosts of our comrades. But fly, O wretched men, fly [640-674]and
pluck the cable from the beach. . . . For even in the shape and stature
of Polyphemus, when he shuts his fleeced flocks and drains their udders
in the cave's covert, an hundred other horrible Cyclopes dwell all about
this shore and stray on the mountain heights. Thrice now does the horned
moon fill out her light, while I linger in life among desolate lairs and
haunts of wild beasts in the woodland, and from a rock survey the giant
Cyclopes and shudder at their cries and echoing feet. The boughs yield a
miserable sustenance, berries and stony sloes, and plants torn up by the
root feed me. Sweeping all the view, I at last espied this fleet
standing in to shore. On it, whatsoever it were, I cast myself; it is
enough to have escaped the accursed tribe. Do you rather, by any death
you will, destroy this life of mine. "
'Scarcely had he spoken thus, when on the mountain top we see
shepherding his flocks a vast moving mass, Polyphemus himself seeking
the shores he knew, a horror ominous, shapeless, huge, bereft of sight.
A pine lopped by his hand guides and steadies his footsteps. His fleeced
sheep attend him, this his single delight and solace in ill. . . . After
he hath touched the deep flood and come to the sea, he washes in it the
blood that oozes from his eye-socket, grinding his teeth with groans;
and now he strides through the sea up to his middle, nor yet does the
wave wet his towering sides. We hurry far away in precipitate flight,
with the suppliant who had so well merited rescue; and silently cut the
cable, and bending forward sweep the sea with emulous oars. He heard,
and turned his steps towards the echoing sound. But when he may in no
wise lay hands on us, nor can fathom the Ionian waves in pursuit, he
raises a vast cry, at which the sea and all his waves shuddered, and the
deep land of Italy was startled, and Aetna's vaulted caverns moaned. But
the tribe of the [675-709]Cyclopes, roused from the high wooded hills,
run to the harbour and fill the shore. We descry the Aetnean brotherhood
standing impotent with scowling eye, their stately heads up to heaven, a
dreadful consistory; even as on a mountain summit stand oaks high in air
or coned cypresses, a high forest of Jove or covert of Diana. Sharp fear
urges us to shake out the sheets in reckless haste, and spread our sails
to the favouring wind. Yet Helenus' commands counsel that our course
keep not the way between Scylla and Charybdis, the very edge of death on
either hand. We are resolved to turn our canvas back. And lo! from the
narrow fastness of Pelorus the North wind comes down and reaches us. I
sail past Pantagias' mouth with its living stone, the Megarian bay, and
low-lying Thapsus. Such names did Achemenides, of luckless Ulysses'
company, point out as he retraced his wanderings along the returning
shores.
'Stretched in front of a bay of Sicily lies an islet over against
wavebeat Plemyrium; they of old called it Ortygia. Hither Alpheus the
river of Elis, so rumour runs, hath cloven a secret passage beneath the
sea, and now through thy well-head, Arethusa, mingles with the Sicilian
waves. We adore as bidden the great deities of the ground; and thence I
cross the fertile soil of Helorus in the marsh. Next we graze the high
reefs and jutting rocks of Pachynus; and far off appears Camarina,
forbidden for ever by oracles to move, and the Geloan plains, and vast
Gela named after its river. Then Acragas on the steep, once the breeder
of noble horses, displays its massive walls in the distance; and with
granted breeze I leave thee behind, palm-girt Selinus, and thread the
difficult shoals and blind reefs of Lilybaeum. Thereon Drepanum receives
me in its haven and joyless border. Here, so many tempestuous seas
outgone, alas! my father, the solace of every care and chance, Anchises
is [710-718]lost to me. Here thou, dear lord, abandonest me in
weariness, alas! rescued in vain from peril and doom. Not Helenus the
prophet, though he counselled of many a terror, not boding Celaeno
foretold me of this grief. This was the last agony, this the goal of the
long ways; thence it was I had departed when God landed me on your
coasts. '
Thus lord Aeneas with all attent retold alone the divine doom and the
history of his goings. At last he was hushed, and here in silence made
an end.
BOOK FOURTH
THE LOVE OF DIDO, AND HER END
But the Queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound
with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. Again and again his
own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and
accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to
her limbs. The morrow's dawn bore the torch of Phoebus across the earth,
and had rolled away the dewy darkness from the sky, when, scarce
herself, she thus opens her confidence to her sister:
'Anna, my sister, such dreams of terror thrill me through! What guest
unknown is this who hath entered our dwelling? How high his mien! how
brave in heart as in arms! I believe it well, with no vain assurance,
his blood is divine. Fear proves the vulgar spirit. Alas, by what
destinies is he driven! what wars outgone he chronicled! Were my mind
not planted, fixed and immoveable, to ally myself to none in wedlock
since my love of old was false to me in the treachery of death; were I
not sick to the heart of bridal torch and chamber, to this temptation
alone I might haply yield. Anna, I will confess it; since Sychaeus mine
husband met his piteous doom, and our household was shattered by a
brother's murder, he only hath [22-55]touched mine heart and stirred
the balance of my soul. I know the prints of the ancient flame. But
rather, I pray, may earth first yawn deep for me, or the Lord omnipotent
hurl me with his thunderbolt into gloom, the pallid gloom and profound
night of Erebus, ere I soil thee, mine honour, or unloose thy laws. He
took my love away who made me one with him long ago; he shall keep it
with him, and guard it in the tomb. ' She spoke, and welling tears filled
the bosom of her gown.
Anna replies: 'O dearer than the daylight to thy sister, wilt thou
waste, sad and alone, all thy length of youth, and know not the
sweetness of motherhood, nor love's bounty? Deemest thou the ashes care
for that, or the ghost within the tomb? Be it so: in days gone by no
wooers bent thy sorrow, not in Libya, not ere then in Tyre; Iarbas was
slighted, and other princes nurtured by the triumphal land of Africa;
wilt thou contend so with a love to thy liking? nor does it cross thy
mind whose are these fields about thy dwelling? On this side are the
Gaetulian towns, a race unconquerable in war; the reinless Numidian
riders and the grim Syrtis hem thee in; on this lies a thirsty tract of
desert, swept by the raiders of Barca. Why speak of the war gathering
from Tyre, and thy brother's menaces? . . . With gods' auspices to my
thinking, and with Juno's favour, hath the Ilian fleet held on hither
before the gale. What a city wilt thou discern here, O sister! what a
realm will rise on such a union! the arms of Troy ranged with ours, what
glory will exalt the Punic state! Do thou only, asking divine favour
with peace-offerings, be bounteous in welcome and draw out reasons for
delay, while the storm rages at sea and Orion is wet, and his ships are
shattered and the sky unvoyageable. ' With these words she made the fire
of love flame up in her spirit, put hope in her wavering soul, and let
honour slip away.
[56-90]First they visit the shrines, and desire grace from altar to
altar; they sacrifice sheep fitly chosen to Ceres the Lawgiver, to
Phoebus and lord Lyaeus, to Juno before all, guardian of the marriage
bond. Dido herself, excellent in beauty, holds the cup in her hand, and
pours libation between the horns of a milk-white cow, or moves in state
to the rich altars before the gods' presences, day by day renewing her
gifts, and gazing athirst into the breasts of cattle laid open to take
counsel from the throbbing entrails. Ah, witless souls of soothsayers!
how may vows or shrines help her madness? all the while the subtle flame
consumes her inly, and deep in her breast the wound is silent and alive.
Stung to misery, Dido wanders in frenzy all down the city, even as an
arrow-stricken deer, whom, far and heedless amid the Cretan woodland, a
shepherd archer hath pierced and left the flying steel in her unaware;
she ranges in flight the Dictaean forest lawns; fast in her side clings
the deadly reed. Now she leads Aeneas with her through the town, and
displays her Sidonian treasure and ordered city; she essays to speak,
and breaks off half-way in utterance. Now, as day wanes, she seeks the
repeated banquet, and again madly pleads to hear the agonies of Ilium,
and again hangs on the teller's lips. Thereafter, when all are gone
their ways, and the dim moon in turn quenches her light, and the setting
stars counsel to sleep, alone in the empty house she mourns, and flings
herself on the couch he left: distant she hears and sees him in the
distance; or enthralled by the look he has of his father, she holds
Ascanius on her lap, if so she may steal the love she may not utter. No
more do the unfinished towers rise, no more do the people exercise in
arms, nor work for safety in war on harbour or bastion; the works hang
broken off, vast looming walls and engines towering into the sky.
So soon as she perceives her thus fast in the toils, and [91-124]madly
careless of her name, Jove's beloved wife, daughter of Saturn, accosts
Venus thus:
'Noble indeed is the fame and splendid the spoils you win, thou and that
boy of thine, and mighty the renown of deity, if two gods have
vanquished one woman by treachery. Nor am I so blind to thy terror of
our town, thine old suspicion of the high house of Carthage. But what
shall be the end? or why all this contest now? Nay, rather let us work
an enduring peace and a bridal compact. Thou hast what all thy soul
desired; Dido is on fire with love, and hath caught the madness through
and through.
