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.
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.
Virgil - Aeneid
This
was the end of Priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with
burning Troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent
lord over so many peoples and lands of Asia. The great corpse lies along
the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name.
'But then an awful terror began to encircle me; I stood in amaze; there
rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as I saw the king, old
as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose Creusa
forlorn, my plundered house, and little Iulus' peril. I look back
[564-596]and survey what force is around me. All, outwearied, have
given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves
wretchedly into the fire:
['Yes, and now I only was left; when I espy the daughter of Tyndarus
close in the courts of Vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses;
the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all
about. Fearing the Teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of Troy,
and the Grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had
abandoned, she, the common Fury of Troy and her native country, had
hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. My spirit kindles to
fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for
her crimes. Shall she verily see Sparta and her native Mycenae
unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? Shall she see her spousal
and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of Trojan
women and Phrygians to serve her? and Priam have fallen under the sword?
Troy blazed in fire? the shore of Dardania so often soaked with blood?
Not so. For though there is no name or fame in a woman's punishment, nor
honour in the victory, yet shall I have praise in quenching a guilty
life and exacting a just recompense; and it will be good to fill my soul
with the flame of vengeance, and satisfy the ashes of my people. Thus
broke I forth, and advanced infuriate;]
'----When my mother came visibly before me, clear to sight as never till
then, and shone forth in pure radiance through the night, gracious,
evident in godhead, in shape and stature such as she is wont to appear
to the heavenly people; she caught me by the hand and stayed me, and
pursued thus with roseate lips:
'"Son, what overmastering pain thus wakes thy wrath? Why ravest thou? or
whither is thy care for us fled? Wilt thou not first look to it, where
thou hast left Anchises, [597-630]thine aged worn father; or if Creusa
thy wife and the child Ascanius survive? round about whom all the Greek
battalions range; and without my preventing care, the flames ere this
had made them their portion, and the hostile sword drunk their blood.
Not the hated face of the Laconian woman, Tyndarus' daughter; not Paris
is to blame; the gods, the gods in anger overturn this magnificence, and
make Troy topple down. Look, for all the cloud that now veils thy gaze
and dulls mortal vision with damp encircling mist, I will rend from
before thee. Fear thou no commands of thy mother, nor refuse to obey her
counsels. Here, where thou seest sundered piles of masonry and rocks
violently torn from rocks, and smoke eddying mixed with dust, Neptune
with his great trident shakes wall and foundation out of their places,
and upturns all the city from her base. Here Juno in all her terror
holds the Scaean gates at the entry, and, girt with steel, calls her
allied army furiously from their ships. . . . Even now on the citadel's
height, look back! Tritonian Pallas is planted in glittering halo and
Gorgonian terror. Their lord himself pours courage and prosperous
strength on the Grecians, himself stirs the gods against the arms of
Dardania. Haste away, O son, and put an end to the struggle. I will
never desert thee; I will set thee safe in the courts of thy father's
house. "
'She ended, and plunged in the dense blackness of the night. Awful faces
shine forth, and, set against Troy, divine majesties . . .
'Then indeed I saw all Ilium sinking in flame, and Neptunian Troy
uprooted from her base: even as an ancient ash on the mountain heights,
hacked all about with steel and fast-falling axes, when husbandmen
emulously strain to cut it down: it hangs threateningly, with shaken top
and quivering tresses asway; till gradually, overmastered with
[631-662]wounds, it utters one last groan, and rending itself away,
falls in ruin along the ridge. I descend, and under a god's guidance
clear my way between foe and flame; weapons give ground before me, and
flames retire.
'And now, when I have reached the courts of my ancestral dwelling, our
home of old, my father, whom it was my first desire to carry high into
the hills, and whom first I sought, declines, now Troy is rooted out, to
prolong his life through the pains of exile.
'"Ah, you," he cries, "whose blood is at the prime, whose strength
stands firm in native vigour, do you take your flight. . . . Had the
lords of heaven willed to prolong life for me, they should have
preserved this my home. Enough and more is the one desolation we have
seen, survivors of a captured city. Thus, oh thus salute me and depart,
as a body laid out for burial. Mine own hand shall find me death: the
foe will be merciful and seek my spoils: light is the loss of a tomb.
This long time hated of heaven, I uselessly delay the years, since the
father of gods and king of men blasted me with wind of thunder and
scathe of flame. "
'Thus held he on in utterance, and remained obstinate. We press him,
dissolved in tears, my wife Creusa, Ascanius, all our household, that
our father involve us not all in his ruin, and add his weight to the
sinking scale of doom. He refuses, and keeps seated steadfast in his
purpose. Again I rush to battle, and choose death in my misery. For what
had counsel or chance yet to give? Thoughtest thou my feet, O father,
could retire and abandon thee? and fell so unnatural words from a
parent's lips? "If heaven wills that naught be left of our mighty city,
if this be thy planted purpose, thy pleasure to cast in thyself and
thine to the doom of Troy; for this death indeed the gate is wide, and
even now Pyrrhus will be here newly bathed in Priam's [663-695]blood,
Pyrrhus who slaughters the son before the father's face, the father upon
his altars. For this was it, bountiful mother, thou dost rescue me amid
fire and sword, to see the foe in my inmost chambers, and Ascanius and
my father, Creusa by their side, hewn down in one another's blood? My
arms, men, bring my arms! the last day calls on the conquered. Return me
to the Greeks; let me revisit and renew the fight. Never to-day shall we
all perish unavenged. "
'Thereat I again gird on my sword, and fitting my left arm into the
clasps of the shield, strode forth of the palace. And lo! my wife clung
round my feet on the threshold, and held little Iulus up to his father's
sight. "If thou goest to die, let us too hurry with thee to the end. But
if thou knowest any hope to place in arms, be this household thy first
defence. To what is little Iulus and thy father, to what am I left who
once was called thy wife? "
'So she shrieked, and filled all the house with her weeping; when a sign
arises sudden and marvellous to tell. For, between the hands and before
the faces of his sorrowing parents, lo! above Iulus' head there seemed
to stream a light luminous cone, and a flame whose touch hurt not to
flicker in his soft hair and play round his brows. We in a flutter of
affright shook out the blazing hair and quenched the holy fires with
spring water. But lord Anchises joyfully upraised his eyes; and
stretching his hands to heaven: "Jupiter omnipotent," he cries, "if thou
dost relent at any prayers, look on us this once alone; and if our
goodness deserve it, give thine aid hereafter, O lord, and confirm this
thine omen. "
'Scarcely had the aged man spoken thus, when with sudden crash it
thundered on the left, and a star gliding through the dusk shot from
heaven drawing a bright trail of light. We watch it slide over the
palace roof, leaving [696-730]the mark of its pathway, and bury its
brilliance in the wood of Ida; the long drawn track shines, and the
region all about fumes with sulphur. Then conquered indeed my father
rises to address the gods and worship the holy star. "Now, now delay is
done with: I follow, and where you lead, I come. Gods of my fathers,
save my house, save my grandchild. Yours is this omen, and in your deity
Troy stands. I yield, O my son, and refuse not to go in thy company. "
'He ended; and now more loudly the fire roars along the city, and the
burning tides roll nearer. "Up then, beloved father, and lean on my
neck; these shoulders of mine will sustain thee, nor will so dear a
burden weigh me down. Howsoever fortune fall, one and undivided shall be
our peril, one the escape of us twain. 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.
was the end of Priam's fortunes; thus did allotted fate find him, with
burning Troy and her sunken towers before his eyes, once magnificent
lord over so many peoples and lands of Asia. The great corpse lies along
the shore, a head severed from the shoulders and a body without a name.
'But then an awful terror began to encircle me; I stood in amaze; there
rose before me the likeness of my loved father, as I saw the king, old
as he, sobbing out his life under the ghastly wound; there rose Creusa
forlorn, my plundered house, and little Iulus' peril. I look back
[564-596]and survey what force is around me. All, outwearied, have
given up and leapt headlong to the ground, or flung themselves
wretchedly into the fire:
['Yes, and now I only was left; when I espy the daughter of Tyndarus
close in the courts of Vesta, crouching silently in the fane's recesses;
the bright glow of the fires lights my wandering, as my eyes stray all
about. Fearing the Teucrians' anger for the overthrown towers of Troy,
and the Grecians' vengeance and the wrath of the husband she had
abandoned, she, the common Fury of Troy and her native country, had
hidden herself and cowered unseen by the altars. My spirit kindles to
fire, and rises in wrath to avenge my dying land and take repayment for
her crimes. Shall she verily see Sparta and her native Mycenae
unscathed, and depart a queen and triumphant? Shall she see her spousal
and her home, her parents and children, attended by a crowd of Trojan
women and Phrygians to serve her? and Priam have fallen under the sword?
Troy blazed in fire? the shore of Dardania so often soaked with blood?
Not so. For though there is no name or fame in a woman's punishment, nor
honour in the victory, yet shall I have praise in quenching a guilty
life and exacting a just recompense; and it will be good to fill my soul
with the flame of vengeance, and satisfy the ashes of my people. Thus
broke I forth, and advanced infuriate;]
'----When my mother came visibly before me, clear to sight as never till
then, and shone forth in pure radiance through the night, gracious,
evident in godhead, in shape and stature such as she is wont to appear
to the heavenly people; she caught me by the hand and stayed me, and
pursued thus with roseate lips:
'"Son, what overmastering pain thus wakes thy wrath? Why ravest thou? or
whither is thy care for us fled? Wilt thou not first look to it, where
thou hast left Anchises, [597-630]thine aged worn father; or if Creusa
thy wife and the child Ascanius survive? round about whom all the Greek
battalions range; and without my preventing care, the flames ere this
had made them their portion, and the hostile sword drunk their blood.
Not the hated face of the Laconian woman, Tyndarus' daughter; not Paris
is to blame; the gods, the gods in anger overturn this magnificence, and
make Troy topple down. Look, for all the cloud that now veils thy gaze
and dulls mortal vision with damp encircling mist, I will rend from
before thee. Fear thou no commands of thy mother, nor refuse to obey her
counsels. Here, where thou seest sundered piles of masonry and rocks
violently torn from rocks, and smoke eddying mixed with dust, Neptune
with his great trident shakes wall and foundation out of their places,
and upturns all the city from her base. Here Juno in all her terror
holds the Scaean gates at the entry, and, girt with steel, calls her
allied army furiously from their ships. . . . Even now on the citadel's
height, look back! Tritonian Pallas is planted in glittering halo and
Gorgonian terror. Their lord himself pours courage and prosperous
strength on the Grecians, himself stirs the gods against the arms of
Dardania. Haste away, O son, and put an end to the struggle. I will
never desert thee; I will set thee safe in the courts of thy father's
house. "
'She ended, and plunged in the dense blackness of the night. Awful faces
shine forth, and, set against Troy, divine majesties . . .
'Then indeed I saw all Ilium sinking in flame, and Neptunian Troy
uprooted from her base: even as an ancient ash on the mountain heights,
hacked all about with steel and fast-falling axes, when husbandmen
emulously strain to cut it down: it hangs threateningly, with shaken top
and quivering tresses asway; till gradually, overmastered with
[631-662]wounds, it utters one last groan, and rending itself away,
falls in ruin along the ridge. I descend, and under a god's guidance
clear my way between foe and flame; weapons give ground before me, and
flames retire.
'And now, when I have reached the courts of my ancestral dwelling, our
home of old, my father, whom it was my first desire to carry high into
the hills, and whom first I sought, declines, now Troy is rooted out, to
prolong his life through the pains of exile.
'"Ah, you," he cries, "whose blood is at the prime, whose strength
stands firm in native vigour, do you take your flight. . . . Had the
lords of heaven willed to prolong life for me, they should have
preserved this my home. Enough and more is the one desolation we have
seen, survivors of a captured city. Thus, oh thus salute me and depart,
as a body laid out for burial. Mine own hand shall find me death: the
foe will be merciful and seek my spoils: light is the loss of a tomb.
This long time hated of heaven, I uselessly delay the years, since the
father of gods and king of men blasted me with wind of thunder and
scathe of flame. "
'Thus held he on in utterance, and remained obstinate. We press him,
dissolved in tears, my wife Creusa, Ascanius, all our household, that
our father involve us not all in his ruin, and add his weight to the
sinking scale of doom. He refuses, and keeps seated steadfast in his
purpose. Again I rush to battle, and choose death in my misery. For what
had counsel or chance yet to give? Thoughtest thou my feet, O father,
could retire and abandon thee? and fell so unnatural words from a
parent's lips? "If heaven wills that naught be left of our mighty city,
if this be thy planted purpose, thy pleasure to cast in thyself and
thine to the doom of Troy; for this death indeed the gate is wide, and
even now Pyrrhus will be here newly bathed in Priam's [663-695]blood,
Pyrrhus who slaughters the son before the father's face, the father upon
his altars. For this was it, bountiful mother, thou dost rescue me amid
fire and sword, to see the foe in my inmost chambers, and Ascanius and
my father, Creusa by their side, hewn down in one another's blood? My
arms, men, bring my arms! the last day calls on the conquered. Return me
to the Greeks; let me revisit and renew the fight. Never to-day shall we
all perish unavenged. "
'Thereat I again gird on my sword, and fitting my left arm into the
clasps of the shield, strode forth of the palace. And lo! my wife clung
round my feet on the threshold, and held little Iulus up to his father's
sight. "If thou goest to die, let us too hurry with thee to the end. But
if thou knowest any hope to place in arms, be this household thy first
defence. To what is little Iulus and thy father, to what am I left who
once was called thy wife? "
'So she shrieked, and filled all the house with her weeping; when a sign
arises sudden and marvellous to tell. For, between the hands and before
the faces of his sorrowing parents, lo! above Iulus' head there seemed
to stream a light luminous cone, and a flame whose touch hurt not to
flicker in his soft hair and play round his brows. We in a flutter of
affright shook out the blazing hair and quenched the holy fires with
spring water. But lord Anchises joyfully upraised his eyes; and
stretching his hands to heaven: "Jupiter omnipotent," he cries, "if thou
dost relent at any prayers, look on us this once alone; and if our
goodness deserve it, give thine aid hereafter, O lord, and confirm this
thine omen. "
'Scarcely had the aged man spoken thus, when with sudden crash it
thundered on the left, and a star gliding through the dusk shot from
heaven drawing a bright trail of light. We watch it slide over the
palace roof, leaving [696-730]the mark of its pathway, and bury its
brilliance in the wood of Ida; the long drawn track shines, and the
region all about fumes with sulphur. Then conquered indeed my father
rises to address the gods and worship the holy star. "Now, now delay is
done with: I follow, and where you lead, I come. Gods of my fathers,
save my house, save my grandchild. Yours is this omen, and in your deity
Troy stands. I yield, O my son, and refuse not to go in thy company. "
'He ended; and now more loudly the fire roars along the city, and the
burning tides roll nearer. "Up then, beloved father, and lean on my
neck; these shoulders of mine will sustain thee, nor will so dear a
burden weigh me down. Howsoever fortune fall, one and undivided shall be
our peril, one the escape of us twain. 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.
