arrow, and proclaims the prizes. With his strong hand he uprears the
mast of Serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the
masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. They gather, and a
helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. First in rank, and
before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out Hippocoön son of
Hyrtacus; and Mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship
race, Mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. Third is Eurytion, thy
brother, O Pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to
shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the Achaeans. Last of
all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank Acestes, he too venturing to
set hand to the task of youth. Then each and all they strongly bend
their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. And first
the arrow of the son of Hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the
sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and
sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird
fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud
clapping. Next valiant Mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming
high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the
bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied
her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the
dark windy clouds. Then Eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on
his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the
pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings;
and as she passed under a dark cloud, [517-553]struck her: she fell
breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down
carrying the arrow that pierced her. Acestes alone was over, and the
prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly
skill and resounding bow. At this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty
in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late
days boding seers prophesied of the omen. For the flying reed blazed out
amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on
the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a
train athwart the sky. Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment,
praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the
omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts,
speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these
signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. This gift
shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with
figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in
high token and guerdon of affection.' So speaking, he twines green bay
about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all.
Nor did gentle Eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the
lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. Next comes for his
prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged
reed.
But lord Aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him Epytides,
guardian and attendant of ungrown Iülus, and thus speaks into his
faithful ear: 'Up and away, and tell Ascanius, if he now holds his band
of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his
squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms.' So says he, and
himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse
and leave the lists free. The boys move in before their parents' faces,
glittering in rank on their [554-590]bitted horses; as they go all the
people of Troy and Trinacria murmur and admire. On the hair of them all
rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts
tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above
their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted
gold. Three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains
gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering
division of twelve boys. One youthful line goes rejoicingly behind
little Priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, O
Polites, and destined to people Italy; he rides a Thracian horse dappled
with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on
his high forehead. Second is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii draw their
line, little Atys, boy beloved of the boy Iülus. Last and excellent in
beauty before them all, Iülus rode in on a Sidonian horse that Dido the
bright had given him for token and pledge of love. The rest of them are
mounted on old Acestes' Sicilian horses. . . . The Dardanians greet
their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise
the features of their parents of old. When they have ridden merrily
round all the concourse of their gazing friends, Epytides shouts from
afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. They gallop apart in
equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands,
and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. Next
they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces,
and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle.
And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the
charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they
say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls,
and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed
in the [591-625]maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track
do the children of Troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of
flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut
Carpathian or Libyan. . . .
This fashion of riding, these games Ascanius first revived, when he girt
Alba the Long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the Old
Latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of Troy about him.
The Albans taught it their children; on from them mighty Rome received
it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called Troy, and the
boys the Trojan troop.
Thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. Just at this
Fortune broke faith and grew estranged. While they pay the due rites to
the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down
the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on,
revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. She,
speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of
none, down her maiden path. She discerns the vast concourse, and
traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left
alone. But far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the Trojan
women wept their lost Anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on
the fathomless flood. 'Alas! after all those weary waterways, that so
wide a sea is yet to come!' such is the single cry of all. They pray for
a city, sick of the burden of their sea-sorrow. So she darts among them,
not witless to harm, and lays by face and raiment of a goddess: she
becomes Beroë, the aged wife of Tmarian Doryclus, who had once had birth
and name and children, and in this guise goes among the Dardanian
matrons. 'Ah, wretched we,' she cries, 'whom hostile Achaean hands did
not drag to death beneath our native city! ah hapless race, for what
destruction does Fortune hold thee back? The [626-660]seventh summer
now declines since Troy's overthrow, while we pass measuring out by so
many stars the harbourless rocks over every water and land, pursuing all
the while over the vast sea an Italy that flies us, and tossing on the
waves. Here are our brother Eryx' borders, and Acestes' welcome: who
denies us to cast up walls and give our citizens a city? O country, O
household gods vainly rescued from the foe! shall there never be a
Trojan town to tell of? shall I nowhere see a Xanthus and a Simoïs, the
rivers of Hector? Nay, up and join me in burning with fire these
ill-ominous ships. For in sleep the phantom of Cassandra the soothsayer
seemed to give me blazing brands: _Here seek your Troy_, she said; _here
is your home_. Now is the time to do it; nor do these high portents
allow delay. Behold four altars to Neptune; the god himself lends the
firebrand and the nerve.' Speaking thus, at once she strongly seizes the
fiery weapon, and with straining hand whirls it far upreared, and
flings: the souls of the Ilian women are startled and their wits amazed.
At this one of their multitude, and she the eldest, Pyrgo, nurse in the
palace to all Priam's many children: 'This is not Beroë, I tell you, O
mothers; this is not the wife of Doryclus of Rhoeteum. Mark the
lineaments of divine grace and the gleaming eyes, what a breath is hers,
what a countenance, and the sound of her voice and the steps of her
going. I, I time agone left Beroë apart, sick and fretting that she
alone must have no part in this our service, nor pay Anchises his due
sacrifice.' So spoke she. . . . But the matrons at first, dubious and
wavering, gazed on the ships with malignant eyes, between the wretched
longing for the land they trod and the fated realm that summoned them:
when the goddess rose through the sky on poised wings, and in her flight
drew a vast bow beneath the clouds. Then indeed, amazed at the tokens
and driven by madness, they raise a cry and snatch fire from the
[661-694]hearths within; others plunder the altars, and cast on
brushwood boughs and brands. The Fire-god rages with loose rein over
thwarts and oars and hulls of painted fir. Eumelus carries the news of
the burning ships to the grave of Anchises and the ranges of the
theatre; and looking back, their own eyes see the floating cloud of dark
ashes. And in a moment Ascanius, as he rode gaily before his cavalry,
spurred his horse to the disordered camp; nor can his breathless
guardians hold him back. 'What strange madness is this?' he cries;
'whither now hasten you, whither, alas and woe! O citizens? not on the
foe nor on some hostile Argive camp; it is your own hopes you burn.
Behold me, your Ascanius!' and he flung before his feet the empty
helmet, put on when he roused the mimicry of war. Aeneas and the Trojan
train together hurry to the spot. But the women scatter apart in fear
all over the beach, and stealthily seek the woods and the hollow rocks
they find: they loathe their deed and the daylight, and with changed
eyes know their people, and Juno is startled out of their breast. But
not thereby do the flames of the burning lay down their unconquered
strength; under the wet oak the seams are alive, spouting slow coils of
smoke; the creeping heat devours the hulls, and the destroyer takes deep
hold of all: nor does the heroes' strength avail nor the floods they
pour in. Then good Aeneas rent away the raiment from his shoulders and
called the gods to aid, stretching forth his hands: 'Jupiter omnipotent,
if thou hatest not Troy yet wholly to her last man, if thine ancient
pity looks at all on human woes, now, O Lord, grant our fleet to escape
the flame, and rescue from doom the slender Teucrian estate. Or do thou
plunge to death this remnant, if I deserve it, with levelled
thunderbolt, and here with thine own hand smite us down.' Scarce had he
uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth
trembles [695-726]to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood
rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and
volleying blasts of the South. The ships are filled from overhead, the
half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all
the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction.
But lord Aeneas, dismayed by the bitter mischance, revolved at heart
this way and that his shifting weight of care, whether, forgetting fate,
he should rest in Sicilian fields, or reach forth to the borders of
Italy. Then old Nautes, whom Tritonian Pallas taught like none other,
and made famous in eminence of art--she granted him to reply what the
gods' heavy anger menaced or what the order of fate claimed--he then in
accents of comfort thus speaks to Aeneas:
'Goddess-born, follow we fate's ebb and flow, whatsoever it shall be;
fortune must be borne to be overcome. Acestes is of thine own divine
Dardanian race; take him, for he is willing, to join thee in common
counsel; deliver to him those who are over, now these ships are lost,
and those who are quite weary of thy fortunes and the great quest.
Choose out the old men stricken in years, and the matrons sick of the
sea, and all that is weak and fearful of peril in thy company. Let this
land give a city to the weary; they shall be allowed to call their town
Acesta by name.'
Then, indeed, kindled by these words of his aged friend, his spirit is
distracted among all his cares. And now black Night rose chariot-borne,
and held the sky; when the likeness of his father Anchises seemed to
descend from heaven and suddenly utter thus:
'O son, more dear to me than life once of old while life was yet mine; O
son, hard wrought by the destinies of Ilium! I come hither by Jove's
command, who drove the [727-760]fire from thy fleets, and at last had
pity out of high heaven. Obey thou the fair counsel aged Nautes now
gives. Carry through to Italy thy chosen men and bravest souls; in
Latium must thou war down a people hard and rough in living. Yet ere
then draw thou nigh the nether chambers of Dis, and in the deep tract of
hell come, O son, to meet me. For I am not held in cruel Tartarus among
wailing ghosts, but inhabit Elysium and the sweet societies of the good.
Hither with much blood of dark cattle shall the holy Sibyl lead thee.
Then shalt thou learn of all thy line, and what city is given thee. And
now farewell; dank Night wheels her mid-career, and even now I feel the
stern breath of the panting horses of the East.' He ended, and retreated
like a vapour into thin air. 'Ah, whither hurriest thou?' cries Aeneas;
'whither so fast away? From whom fliest thou? or who withholds thee from
our embrace?' So speaking, he kindles the sleeping embers of the fire,
and with holy meal and laden censer does sacrifice to the tutelar of
Pergama and hoar Vesta's secret shrine.
Straightway he summons his crews and Acestes first of all, and instructs
them of Jove's command and his beloved father's precepts, and what is
now his fixed mind and purpose. They linger not in counsel, nor does
Acestes decline his bidden duty: they enrol the matrons in their town,
and plant a people there, souls that will have none of glory. The rest
repair the thwarts and replace the ships' timbers that the flames had
gnawed upon, and fit up oars and rigging, little in number, but alive
and valiant for war. Meanwhile Aeneas traces the town with the plough
and allots the homesteads; this he bids be Ilium, and these lands Troy.
Trojan Acestes, rejoicing in his kingdom, appoints a court and gathers
his senators to give them statutes. Next, where the crest of Eryx is
neighbour to the stars, a dwelling is founded to Venus the Idalian;
[761-793]and a priest and breadth of holy wood is attached to Anchises'
grave.
And now for nine days all the people hath feasted, and offering been
paid at the altars; quiet breezes have smoothed the ocean floor, and the
gathering south wind blows, calling them again to sea. A mighty weeping
arises along the winding shore; a night and a day they linger in mutual
embraces. The very mothers now, the very men to whom once the sight of
the sea seemed cruel and the name intolerable, would go on and endure
the journey's travail to the end. These Aeneas comforts with kindly
words, and commends with tears to his kinsman Acestes' care. Then he
bids slay three steers to Eryx and a she-lamb to the Tempests, and loose
the hawser as is due. Himself, his head bound with stripped leaves of
olive, he stands apart on the prow holding the cup, and casts the
entrails into the salt flood and pours liquid wine. A wind rising astern
follows them forth on their way. Emulously the crews strike the water,
and sweep through the seas.
But Venus meanwhile, wrought upon with distress, accosts Neptune, and
thus pours forth her heart's complaint: 'Juno's bitter wrath and heart
insatiable compel me, O Neptune, to sink to the uttermost of entreaty:
neither length of days nor any goodness softens her, nor doth Jove's
command and fate itself break her to desistence. It is not enough that
her accursed hatred hath devoured the Phrygian city from among the
people, and exhausted on it the stores of vengeance; still she pursues
this remnant, the bones and ashes of murdered Troy. I pray she know why
her passion is so fierce. Thyself art my witness what a sudden stir she
raised of late on the Libyan waters, flinging all the seas to heaven in
vain reliance on Aeolus' blasts; this she dared in thy realm. . . .
Lo too, driving the Trojan matrons into guilt, she hath foully
[794-826]burned their ships, and forced them, their fleet lost, to
leave the crews to an unknown land. Let the remnant, I beseech thee,
give their sails to thy safe keeping across the seas; let them reach
Laurentine Tiber; if I ask what is permitted, if fate grants them a city
there.'
Then the son of Saturn, compeller of the ocean deep, uttered thus: 'It
is wholly right, O Cytherean, that thy trust should be in my realm,
whence thou drawest birth; and I have deserved it: often have I allayed
the rage and full fury of sky and sea. Nor less on land, I call Xanthus
and Simoïs to witness, hath been my care of thine Aeneas. When Achilles
pursued the Trojan armies and hurled them breathless on their walls, and
sent many thousands to death,--when the choked rivers groaned and
Xanthus could not find passage or roll out to sea,--then I snatched
Aeneas away in sheltering mist as he met the brave son of Peleus
outmatched in strength and gods, eager as I was to overthrow the walls
of perjured Troy that mine own hands had built. Now too my mind rests
the same; dismiss thy fear. In safety, as thou desirest, shall he reach
the haven of Avernus. One will there be alone whom on the flood thou
shalt lose and require; one life shall be given for many. . . .'
With these words the goddess' bosom is soothed to joy. Then their lord
yokes his wild horses with gold and fastens the foaming bits, and
letting all the reins run slack in his hand, flies lightly in his
sea-coloured chariot over the ocean surface. The waves sink to rest, and
the swoln water-ways smooth out under the thundering axle; the
storm-clouds scatter from the vast sky. Diverse shapes attend him,
monstrous whales, and Glaucus' aged choir, and Palaemon, son of Ino, the
swift Tritons, and Phorcus with all his army. Thetis and Melite keep the
left, and maiden Panopea, Nesaea and Spio, Thalia and Cymodoce.
[827-860]At this lord Aeneas' soul is thrilled with soft counterchange
of delight. He bids all the masts be upreared with speed, and the sails
stretched on the yards. Together all set their sheets, and all at once
slacken their canvas to left and again to right; together they brace and
unbrace the yard-arms aloft; prosperous gales waft the fleet along.
First, in front of all, Palinurus steered the close column; the rest
under orders ply their course by his. And now dewy Night had just
reached heaven's mid-cone; the sailors, stretched on their hard benches
under the oars, relaxed their limbs in quiet rest: when Sleep, sliding
lightly down from the starry sky, parted the shadowy air and cleft the
dark, seeking thee, O Palinurus, carrying dreams of bale to thee who
dreamt not of harm, and lit on the high stern, a god in Phorbas'
likeness, dropping this speech from his lips: 'Palinurus son of Iasus,
the very seas bear our fleet along; the breezes breathe steadily; for an
hour rest is given. Lay down thine head, and steal thy worn eyes from
their toil. I myself for a little will take thy duty in thy stead.' To
whom Palinurus, scarcely lifting his eyes, returns: 'Wouldst thou have
me ignorant what the calm face of the brine means, and the waves at
rest? Shall I have faith in this perilous thing? How shall I trust
Aeneas to deceitful breezes, and the placid treachery of sky that hath
so often deceived me?' Such words he uttered, and, clinging fast to the
tiller, slackened hold no whit, and looked up steadily on the stars. Lo!
the god shakes over either temple a bough dripping with Lethean dew and
made slumberous with the might of Styx, and makes his swimming eyes
relax their struggles. Scarcely had sleep begun to slacken his limbs
unaware, when bending down, he flung him sheer into the clear water,
tearing rudder and half the stern away with him, and many a time crying
vainly on his comrades: himself [861-871]he rose on flying wings into
the thin air. None the less does the fleet run safe on its sea path, and
glides on unalarmed in lord Neptune's assurance. Yes, and now they were
sailing in to the cliffs of the Sirens, dangerous once of old and white
with the bones of many a man; and the hoarse rocks echoed afar in the
ceaseless surf; when her lord felt the ship rocking astray for loss of
her helmsman, and himself steered her on over the darkling water,
sighing often the while, and heavy at heart for his friend's mischance.
'Ah too trustful in sky's and sea's serenity, thou shalt lie, O
Palinurus, naked on an alien sand!'
BOOK SIXTH
THE VISION OF THE UNDER WORLD
So speaks he weeping, and gives his fleet the rein, and at last glides
in to Euboïc Cumae's coast. They turn the prows seaward; the ships
grounded fast on their anchors' teeth, and the curving ships line the
beach. The warrior band leaps forth eagerly on the Hesperian shore; some
seek the seeds of flame hidden in veins of flint, some scour the woods,
the thick coverts of wild beasts, and find and shew the streams. But
good Aeneas seeks the fortress where Apollo sits high enthroned, and the
lone mystery of the awful Sibyl's cavern depth, over whose mind and soul
the prophetic Delian breathes high inspiration and reveals futurity.
Now they draw nigh the groves of Trivia and the roof of gold. Daedalus,
as the story runs, when in flight from Minos' realm he dared to spread
his fleet wings to the sky, glided on his unwonted way towards the icy
northern star, and at length lit gently on the Chalcidian fastness.
Here, on the first land he retrod, he dedicated his winged oarage to
thee, O Phoebus, in the vast temple he built. On the doors is Androgeus'
death; thereby the children of Cecrops, bidden, ah me! to pay for yearly
ransom seven souls of their sons; the urn stands there, and the lots are
drawn. Right [23-55]opposite the land of Gnosus rises from the sea; on
it is the cruel love of the bull, the disguised stealth of Pasiphaë, and
the mingled breed and double issue of the Minotaur, record of a shameful
passion; on it the famous dwelling's laborious inextricable maze; but
Daedalus, pitying the great love of the princess, himself unlocked the
tangled treachery of the palace, guiding with the clue her lover's blind
footsteps. Thou too hadst no slight part in the work he wrought, O
Icarus, did grief allow. Twice had he essayed to portray thy fate in
gold; twice the father's hands dropped down. Nay, their eyes would scan
all the story in order, were not Achates already returned from his
errand, and with him the priestess of Phoebus and Trivia, Deïphobe
daughter of Glaucus, who thus accosts the king: 'Other than this are the
sights the time demands: now were it well to sacrifice seven unbroken
bullocks of the herd, as many fitly chosen sheep of two years old.' Thus
speaks she to Aeneas; nor do they delay to do her sacred bidding; and
the priestess calls the Teucrians into the lofty shrine.
A vast cavern is scooped in the side of the Euboïc cliff, whither lead
an hundred wide passages by an hundred gates, whence peal forth as
manifold the responses of the Sibyl. They had reached the threshold,
when the maiden cries: _It is time to enquire thy fate: the god, lo! the
god!_ And even as she spoke thus in the gateway, suddenly countenance
nor colour nor ranged tresses stayed the same; her wild heart heaves
madly in her panting bosom; and she expands to sight, and her voice is
more than mortal, now the god breathes on her in nearer deity.
'Lingerest thou to vow and pray,' she cries, 'Aeneas of Troy? lingerest
thou? for not till then will the vast portals of the spellbound house
swing open.' So spoke she, and sank to silence. A cold shiver ran
through the Teucrians' iron frames, and the king pours heart-deep
supplication: