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, Laërtes' 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
Simoïs, 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.