“After the gods’ decision to overthrowThe Asian world, the innocent house of Priam,And the proud city, built by Neptune, smokedFrom the ruined ground, we were driven, different ways,By heaven’s auguries, seeking lands forsaken.Below Antandros, under Phrygian Ida,We built a fleet, and gathered men, uncertainOf either direction or settlement. The summerHad scarce begun, when at my father’s orders,We spread our sails. I wept as I left the harbor,The fields where Troy had been. I was borne, an exileOver the deep, with son, companions, household,And household gods.Far off there lies a land,Sacred to Mars; the Thracians used to till it,Whose king was fierce Lycurgus; they were friendly,Of old, to Troy, when we were prosperous. HitherI sailed, and on its curving shore establishedA city site; Aeneadae, I called it.This I began, not knowing fate was adverse.I was offering my mother proper homage,And other gods, to bless the new beginnings,I had a white bull ready as a victimTo the king of the gods. There was a mound nearby,Bristling with myrtle and with cornel-bushes.I needed greenery to veil the altar,But as I struggled with the leafy branches,A fearful portent met my gaze. Black dropsDripped from the ends of the roots, black blood was fallingOn the torn ground, and a cold chill went through me.I tried again; the shoot resisted; bloodFollowed again. Troubled, I prayed to the Nymphs,To the father of the fields, to bless the vision,Remove the curse; and down on my knees I wrestledOnce more against the stubborn ground, and heardA groan from under the hillock, and a voice crying:‘Why mangle a poor wretch, Aeneas? Spare me,Here in the tomb, and save your hands pollution.You know me, I am Trojan-born, no stranger,This is familiar blood. Alas! Take flight,Leave this remorseless land; the curse of greedLies heavy on it. I am Polydorus,Pierced by an iron harvest; out of my bodyRise javelins and lances.’ I was speechless,Stunned, in my terror.Priam, forever unfortunate, had sentThis Polydorus on a secret mission,Once, to the king of Thrace, with gold for hidingWhen the king despaired of the siege and the city’s fortune.And when Troy fell, and Fortune failed, the ThracianTook Agamemnon’s side, broke off his duty,Slew Polydorus, took the gold. There is nothingTo which men are not driven by that hunger.Once over my fear, I summoned all the leaders,My father, too; I told them of the portent,Asked for their counsel. All agreed, a landSo stained with violence and violationWas not for us to dwell in. Southward ho!For Polydorus we made restorationWith funeral rites anew; earth rose againAbove his outraged mound; dark fillets madeThe altar sorrowful, and cypress boughs,And the Trojan women loosed their hair in mourning.We offered milk in foaming bowls, and bloodWarm from the victims, so to rest the spirit,And cry aloud the voice of valediction.Then, when we trust the sea again, and the windCalls with a gentle whisper, we crowd the shores,Launch ship again, leave port, the lands and citiesFade out of sight once more.There is an islandIn the middle of the sea; the Nereids’ motherAnd Neptune hold it sacred. It used to wanderBy various coasts and shores, until Apollo,In grateful memory, bound it fast, unmoving,Unfearful of winds, between two other islandsCalled Myconos and Gyaros. I sailed there;Our band was weary, and the calmest harborGave us safe haven. This was Apollo’s city;We worshipped it on landing. And their king,Priest of Apollo also, came to meet us,His temples bound with holy fillets, and laurel.His name was Anius; he knew AnchisesAs an old friend, and gave us joyful welcome.Apollo’s temple was built of ancient rock,And there I prayed: ‘Grant us a home, Apollo,Give walls to weary men, a race, a cityThat will abide; preserve Troy’s other fortress,The remnant left by the Greeks and hard Achilles.Whom do we follow? where are we bidden to goTo find our settlement? An omen, father!’I had scarcely spoken, when suddenly all things trembled,The doors, and the laurel, and the whole mountain moved,And the shrine was opened, and a rumbling soundWas heard. We knelt, most humbly; and a voiceCame to our ears: ‘The land which brought you forth,Men of endurance, will receive you home.Seek out your ancient mother. There your houseWill rule above all lands, your children’s children,For countless generations.’ Apollo spoke,And we were joyful and confused, together:What walls were those, calling the wanderers home?My father, pondering history, made answer:‘Hear, leaders; learn your hopes. There is a landCalled Crete, an island in the midst of the sea,The cradle of our race; it has a mountain,Ida, like ours, a hundred mighty cities,Abounding wealth; if I recall correctly,Teucer, our greatest father, came from thereTo the Rhoetean shores to found his kingdom.Ilium was nothing then, the towers of TroyUndreamed of; men lived in the lowly valleys.And Cybele, the Great Mother, came from CreteWith her clashing cymbals, and her grove of IdaWas named from that original; the silenceOf her mysterious rites, the harnessed lionsBefore her chariot wheels, all testifyTo Cretan legend. Come, then, let us followWhere the gods lead, and seek the Cretan kingdom.It is not far; with Jupiter to favor,Three days will see us there.’ With prayer, he madeMost solemn sacrifice, a bull to Neptune,One to Apollo, to Winter a black heifer,A white one for fair winds.The story ranThat no one lived in Crete, IdomeneusHaving left his father’s kingdom, that the housesWere empty now, dwellings vacated for us.We sailed from Delos, flying over the waterPast Naxos, on whose heights the Bacchae revel,Past green Donysa, snowy Paros, skimmingThe passages between the sea-sown islands.No crew would yield to another; there is shouting,And the cheer goes up, ‘To Crete, and the land of our fathers!’A stern wind follows, and we reach the land.I am glad to be there; I lay out the wallsFor the chosen city, name it Pergamea,And the people are happy.Love your hearths, I told them,Build high the citadel. The ships were steadiedOn the dry beach, the young were busy ploughing,Or planning marriage, and I was giving laws,Assigning homes. But the weather turned, the skyGrew sick, and from the tainted heaven camePestilence and pollution, a deadly yearFor people and harvest. Those who were not dyingDragged weary bodies around; the Dog-Star scorchedThe fields to barrenness; grass withered, cornRefused to ripen. ‘Over the sea again!’My father said, ‘let us return to Delos,Consult the oracle, implore ApolloTo show us kindliness; what end awaitsOur weary destiny, where does he bid us turnFor help in trouble?’Sleep held all creatures over the earth at rest;In my own darkness visions came, the sacredImages of the household gods I had carriedWith me from Troy, out of the burning city.I saw them plain, in the flood of light, where the moonStreamed through the dormers. And they eased me, saying:‘Apollo would tell you this, if you went overThe sea again to Delos; from him we comeTo you, with willing spirit. We came with youFrom the burnt city, we have followed stillThe swollen sea in the ships; in time to comeWe shall raise your sons to heaven, and dominionShall crown their city. Prepare to build them walls,Great homes for greatness; do not flee the labor,The long, long toil of flight. Crete, says Apollo,Is not the place. There is a land in the West,Called by the Greeks, Hesperia: anciencyAnd might in arms and wealth enrich its soil.The Oenotrians lived there once; now, rumor has it,A younger race has called it ItalyAfter the name of a leader, Italus.Dardanus came from there, our ancestor,As Iasius was. There is our dwelling-place.Be happy, then, waken, and tell AnchisesOur certain message: seek the land in the West.Crete is forbidden country.’The vision shook me, and the voice of the gods;(It was not a dream, exactly; I seemed to know them,Their features, the veiled hair, the living presence.)I woke in a sweat, held out my hands to heaven,And poured the pure libation for the altar,Then, gladly, to Anchises. He acknowledgedHis own mistake, a natural confusion,Our stock was double, of course; no need of sayingWe had more ancestors than one. ‘Cassandra,’Anchises said, ‘alone, now I remember,Foretold this fate; it seemed she was always talkingOf a land in the West, and Italian kingdoms, always.But who would ever have thought that any TrojansWould reach the shores in the West? Or, for that matter,Who ever believed Cassandra? Let us yieldTo the warning of Apollo, and at his biddingSeek better fortunes.’ So we obeyed him,Leaving this place, where a few stayed, and sailingThe hollow keels over the mighty ocean.We were in deep water, and the land no longerWas visible, sky and ocean everywhere.A cloud, black-blue, loomed overhead, with nightAnd tempest in it, and the water roughenedIn shadow; winds piled up the sea, the billowsRose higher; we were scattered in the surges.Clouds took away the daylight, and the nightWas dark and wet in the sky, with lightning flashing.We wandered, off our course, in the dark of ocean,And our pilot, Palinurus, swore he could notTell day from night, nor the way among the waters.For three lost days, three starless nights, we rode it,Saw land on the fourth, mountains and smoke arising.The sails came down, we bent to the oars; the sailorsMade the foam fly, sweeping the dark blue water.I was saved from the waves; the Strophades received me,(The word means Turning-point in the Greek language),Ionian islands where the dire CelaenoAnd other Harpies live, since Phineus’ houseWas closed to them, and they feared their former tables.No fiercer plague of the gods’ anger everRose out of hell, girls with the look of birds,Their bellies fouled, incontinent, their handsLike talons, and their faces pale with hunger.We sailed into the harbor, happy to seeGood herds of cattle grazing over the grassAnd goats, unshepherded. We cut them downAnd made our prayer and offering to Jove,Set trestles on the curving shore for feasting.Down from the mountains with a fearful rushAnd a sound of wings like metal came the Harpies,To seize our banquet, smearing dirtinessOver it all, with a hideous kind of screamingAnd a stinking smell. We found a secret hollowEnclosed by trees, under a ledge of rock,Where shade played over; there we moved the tablesAnd lit the fire again; the noisy HarpiesCame out of somewhere, sky, or rock, and harriedThe feast again, the filthy talons grabbing,The taint all through the air.Take arms, I ordered,We have to fight them. And my comrades, hidingTheir shields in the grass, lay with their swords beside them,And when the birds swooped screaming, and Misenus,Sounded the trumpet-signal, they rose to charge them,A curious kind of battle, men with sword-bladesAgainst the winged obscenities of ocean.Their feathers felt no blow, their backs no wound,They rose to the sky as rapidly as ever,Leaving the souvenirs of their foul tracesOver the ruined feast. And one, Celaeno,Perched on a lofty rock, squawked out a warning:—‘Is it war you want, for slaughtered goats and bullocks,Is it war you bring, you sons of liars, drivingThe innocent Harpies from their father’s kingdom?Take notice, then, and let my words foreverStick in your hearts; what Jove has told Apollo,Apollo told me, and I, the greatest fury,Shove down your throats; it is Italy you are after,And the winds will help you, Italy and her harborsYou will reach, all right; but you will not wall the cityTill, for the wrong you have done us, deadly hungerWill make you gnaw and crunch your very tables!’She flew back to the forest. My companionsWere chilled with sudden fear; their spirit wavered,They call on me, to beg for peace, not nowWith arms, but vows and praying, filthy birdsOr ill-foreboding goddesses, no matter.Anchises prayed with outstretched hands, appeasingThe mighty gods with sacrifice:—‘Be gracious,Great gods, ward off the threats, spare the devoted!’He bade us tear the cable from the shore,Shake loose the sails. And a wind sprang up behind us,Driving us northward; we passed many islands,Zacynthus, wooded, Dulichium, and Same,The cliffs of Neritus, Laertes’ kingdom,With a curse as we went by for Ithaca,Land of Ulysses. Soon Leucate’s headlandCame into view, a dreadful place for sailors,Where Apollo had a shrine. We were very wearyAs we drew near the little town; the anchorWas thrown from the prow, the sterns pulled up on the beaches.This was unhoped-for land; we offered JoveOur purifying rites, and had the altarsBurning with sacrifice. We thronged the shoreWith games of Ilium. Naked, oiled for wrestling,The young held bouts, glad that so many islandsHeld by the Greeks, were safely passed. A yearWent by, and icy winter roughened the wavesWith gales from the north. A shield of hollow bronze,Borne once by Abas, I fastened to the door-posts,And set a verse below it:Aeneas wonThese arms from the Greek victors.I gave the orderTo man the thwarts and leave this harbor; allObeyed, swept oars in rivalry. We leftPhaeacia’s airy heights, coasting Epirus,Drawn to Buthrotum, a Chaonian harbor.And here we met strange news, that Helenus,The son of Priam, was ruling Grecian cities,Having won the wife of Pyrrhus and his crown,And that Andromache once more had marriedA lord of her own race. Amazed, I burnWith a strange longing to seek out that hero,To learn his great adventures. It so happened,Just as I left the landing, that was the dayAndromache, in a grove before the city,By the waters of a river that resembledThe Simois at home, was offering homage,Her annual mourning-gift to Hector’s ashes,Calling his ghost to the place which she had hallowedWith double altars, a green and empty tomb.I found her weeping there, and she was startledAt the sight of me, and Trojan arms, a shockToo great to bear: she was rigid for a moment,And then lost consciousness, and a long time laterManaged to speak: ‘Is it real, then, goddess-born?What are you, living messenger or phantom,Mortal or ghost? If the dear light has left you,Tell me where Hector is.’ I was moved, so deeplyI found it hard to answer to her tearsAnd through my own, but I did say a little:—‘I am alive; I seem to keep on livingThrough all extremes of trouble; do not doubt me,I am no apparition. And what has happenedTo you, dear wife of Hector? Could any gainAtone for such a loss? Has fortune triedTo even matters at all? Does Pyrrhus stillPresume on you as husband?’ With lowered gazeAnd quiet voice she answered:—‘Happy the maidenSlain at the foeman’s tomb, at the foot of the walls;Happy the daughter of Priam, who never knewThe drawing of the lots, nor came to the bedOf a conqueror, his captive. After the fireI travelled different seas, endured the prideAchilles filled his son with, bore him childrenIn bondage, till he tired of me and left meFor Leda’s daughter and a Spartan marriage.He passed me on to Helenus, fair enough,Slave-woman to slave-man; but then Orestes,Inflamed with passion for his stolen bride,And maddened by the Furies of his vengeance,Caught Pyrrhus off-guard, and slew him at the altarIn his ancestral home. And Pyrrhus dying,Part of the kingdom came to Helenus,Who named the fields Chaonian, the landChaonia, after a man from Troy,And filled the heights, as best he could, with buildingsTo look like those we knew. But what of yourself?What winds, what fate, have brought you here, or was itSome god? did you know you were on our coast? How isThe boy Ascanius, living still, whom TroyMight have—does he ever think about his mother?Does he want to be a hero, a manly spirit,Such as his father was, and his uncle Hector?’She was in tears again, when the son of Priam,Helenus, with an escort, came from the city,Happy to recognize us, bringing us inWith tears and greeting mingled. I went on,Seeing a little Troy, low walls that copiedThe old majestic ramparts, a tiny riverIn a dry bed, trying to be the Xanthus,I found the Scaean gates, to hold and cling to.My Trojans, too, were fond of the friendly town,Whose king received them in wide halls; libationsWere poured to the gods, and feasts set on gold dishes.Day after day went by, and the winds were callingAnd the sails filling with a good south-wester.I put my questions to the king and prophet:‘O son of Troy, the god’s interpreter,Familiar with the tripod and the laurelOf great Apollo, versed in stars and omens,Bird-song and flying wing, be gracious to me,Tell me,—for Heaven has prophesied a journeyWithout mischance, and all the gods have sent meThe counsel of their oracles, to followItaly and a far-off country; one,But one, Celaeno, prophesied misfortune,Wrath and revolting hunger,—tell me, prophet,What dangers first to avoid, what presence followTo overcome disaster?’Bullocks slainWith proper covenant, and the chaplets loosened,He led me to the temple of Apollo,The very gates, where the god’s presence awed me,And where he spoke, with eloquent inspiration:—‘O goddess-born, the journey over the seaHolds a clear sanction for you, under Jove,Who draws the lots and turns the wheel of Fate.I will tell you some few things, not all, that safelyYou may go through friendly waters, and in timeCome to Ausonian harborage; the restHelenus does not know, or, if he did,Juno would stop his speaking. First of all,Italy, which you think is near, too fondlyReady to enter her nearest port, is distant,Divided from you by a pathless journeyAnd longer lands between. The oar must bendIn the Sicilian ocean, and the shipsSail on a farther coast, beyond the lakesOf an infernal world, beyond the islesWhere dwells Aeaean Circe, not till thenCan the built city rise on friendly ground.Keep in the mind the sign I give you now:One day, when you are anxious and aloneAt the wave of a hidden river, you will findUnder the oaks on the shore, a sow, a white one,Immense, with a new-born litter, thirty youngAt the old one’s udders; that will be the place,The site of the city, the certain rest from labor.And do not fear the eating of the tables,The fates will find a way, Apollo answer.Avoid this coast of Italy, the landsJust westward of our own; behind those wallsDwell evil Greeks, Narycian Locri, soldiersOf the Cretan king, Idomeneus; the plainsAre full of them; a Meliboean captainGoverns Petelia, a tiny townRelying on her fortress! PhiloctetesCommands her walls. And furthermore, remember,Even when the ships have crossed the sea and anchored,When the altars stand on the shore, and the vows are paid,Keep the hair veiled, and the robe of crimson drawnAcross the eyes, so that no hostile visageMay interfere, to gaze on the holy fireOr spoil the sacred omens. This rite observeThrough all the generations; keep it holy.From that first landing, when the wind brings you downTo Sicily’s coast, and narrow Pelorus widensThe waters of her strait, keep to the left,Land on the left, and water on the left,The long way round; the right is dangerous.Avoid it. There’s a story that this landOnce broke apart—(time brings so many changes)—By some immense convulsion, though the landsHad been one country once. But now between themThe sea comes in, and now the waters boundItalian coast, Sicilian coast; the tideWashes on severed shores, their fields, their cities.Scylla keeps guard on the right; on the left Charybdis,The unappeasable; from the deep gulf she sucksThe great waves down, three times; three times she belchesThem high up into the air, and sprays the stars.Scylla is held in a cave, a den of darkness,From where she thrusts her huge jaws out, and drawsShips to her jagged rocks. She looks like a girlFair-breasted to the waist, from there, all monster,Shapeless, with dolphins’ tails, and a wolf’s belly.Better to go the long way round, make turningBeyond Pachynus, than to catch one glimpseOf Scylla the misshapen, in her cavern,And the rocks resounding with the dark-blue sea-hounds.And one thing more than any, goddess-born,I tell you over and over: pray to Juno,Give Juno vows and gifts and overcome herWith everlasting worship. So you will comePast Sicily and reach Italian beaches.You will come to a town called Cumae, haunted lakes,And a forest called Avernus, where the leavesRustle and stir in the great woods, and thereYou will find a priestess, in her wildness singingProphetic verses under the stones, and keepingSymbols and signs on leaves. She files and stores themIn the depth of the cave; there they remain unmoving,Keeping their order, but if a light wind stirsAt the turn of a hinge, and the door’s draft disturbs them,The priestess never cares to catch them flutteringAround the halls of rock, put them in order,Or give them rearrangement. Men who have come thereFor guidance leave uncounselled, and they hateThe Sibyl’s dwelling. Let no loss of time,However comrades chide and chafe, howeverThe wind’s voice calls the sail, postpone the visitTo this great priestess; plead with her to tell youWith her own lips the song of the oracles.She will predict the wars to come, the nationsOf Italy, the toils to face, or flee from;Meet her with reverence, and she, propitious,Will grant a happy course. My voice can tell youNo more than this. Farewell; raise Troy to heaven.’After the friendly counsel, other giftsWere sent to our ships, carved ivory, and gold,And heavy silver, cauldrons from Dodona,A triple breastplate linked with gold, a helmetShining with crested plume, the arms of Pyrrhus.My father, too, has gifts; horses and guidesAre added, and sailing-men, and arms for my comrades.Anchises bade the fleet prepare; the windWas rising, why delay? But HelenusSpoke to Anchises, in compliment and honor:—‘Anchises, worthy of Venus’ couch, and the blessingOf other gods, twice saved from Trojan ruins,Yonder behold Ausonia! Near, and far,It lies, Apollo’s offering; sail westward.Farewell, made blest by a son’s goodness. IAm a nuisance with my talking.’And his queen,Sad at the final parting, was bringing gifts,Robes woven with a golden thread, a TrojanScarf for Ascanius, all courteous honorGiven with these:—‘Take them, my child; these areThe work of my own hands, memorialsOf Hector’s wife Andromache, and her love.Receive these farewell gifts; they are for oneWho brings my own son back to me; your hands,Your face, your eyes, remind me of him so,—He would be just your age.’I, also, wept,As I spoke my words of parting: ‘Now farewell;Your lot is finished, and your rest is won,No ocean fields to plough, no fleeing fieldsTo follow, you have your Xanthus and your Troy,Built by your hands, and blest by happier omens,Far from the path of the Greeks. But we are calledFrom fate to fate; if ever I enter TiberAnd Tiber’s neighboring lands, if ever I seeThe walls vouchsafed my people, I pray these shores,Italy and Epirus, shall be one,The life of Troy restored, with friendly townsAnd allied people. A common origin,A common fall, was ours. Let us remember,And our children keep the faith.’Over the sea we rode, the shortest runTo Italy, past the Ceraunian rocks.The sun went down; the hills were dark with shadow.The oars assigned, we drew in to the landFor a little welcome rest; sleep overcame us,But it was not yet midnight when our pilotSprang from his blanket, studying the winds,Alert and listening, noting the starsWheeling the silent heaven, the twin Oxen,Arcturus and the rainy Kids. All calm,He saw, and roused us; camp was broken; the sailSpread to the rushing breeze, and as day reddenedAnd the stars faded, we saw a coast, low-lying,And made out hills. ‘Italy!’, cried Achates,‘Italy!’ all the happy sailors shouted.Anchises wreathed a royal wine-bowl, stoodOn the high stern, calling:—‘Gods of earth and oceanAnd wind and storm, help us along, propitiousWith favoring breath!’ And the breeze sprang up, and freshened;We saw a harbor open, and a templeShone on Minerva’s headland. The sails came down,We headed toward the land. Like the curve of a bowThe port turned in from the Eastern waves; its cliffsFoamed with the salty spray, and towering rocksCame down to the sea, on both sides, double walls,And the temple fled the shore. Here, our first omen,I saw four horses grazing, white as snow,And father Anchises cried:—‘It is war you bring us,Welcoming land, horses are armed for war,It is war these herds portend. But there is hopeOf peace as well. Horses will bend to the yokeAnd bear the bridle tamely.’ Then we worshippedThe holy power of Pallas, first to hear us,Kept our heads veiled before the solemn altar,And following Helenus’ injunction, offeredOur deepest prayer to Juno.And sailed on,With some misgiving, past the homes of Greeks;Saw, next, a bay, Tarentum, and a townThat rumor said was Hercules’; against it,The towers of Caulon rose, and Scylaceum,Most dangerous to ships, and a temple of Juno.Far off, Sicilian Etna rose from the waves,And we heard the loud sea roar, and the rocks resounding,And voices broken on the coast; the shoalsLeaped at us, and the tide boiled sand. My fatherCried in alarm:—‘This must be that CharybdisHelenus warned us of. Rise to the oars,O comrades, pull from the danger!’ They respondedAs they did, always, Palinurus swingingThe prow to the waves on the left, and all our effortStrained to the left, with oars and sail. One momentWe were in the clouds, the next in the gulf of Hell;Three times the hollow rocks and reefs roared at us,Three times we saw spray shower the very stars,And the wind went down at sunset; we were weary,Drifting, in ignorance, to the Cyclops shores.There is a harbor, safe enough from wind,But Etna thunders near it, crashing and roaring,Throwing black clouds up to the sky, and smokingWith swirling pitchy color, and white-hot ashes,With balls of flame puffed to the stars, and boulders,The mountain’s guts, belched out, or molten rockBoiling below the ground, roaring above it.The story goes that Enceladus, a giant,Struck by a bolt of lightning, lies here buriedBeneath all Etna’s weight, with the flames pouringThrough the broken furnace-flues; he shifts his body,Every so often, to rest his weariness,And then all Sicily seems to moan and trembleAnd fill the sky with smoke. We spent the night here,Hiding in woods, enduring monstrous portents,Unable to learn the cause. There were no stars,No light or fire in the sky; the dead of the night,The thick of the cloud, obscured the moon.And dayArrived, at last, and the shadows left the heaven,And a man came out of the woods, a sorry figure,In hunger’s final stages, reaching toward usHis outstretched hands. We looked again. His beardUnshorn, his rags pinned up with thorns, and dirty,He was, beyond all doubt of it, a Greek,And one of those who had been at Troy in the fighting.He saw, far off, the Trojan dress and armor,Stopped short, for a moment, almost started backIn panic, then, with a wild rush, came on,Pleading and crying:—‘By the stars I beg you,By the gods above, the air we breathe, ah Trojans,Take me away from here, carry me offTo any land whatever; that will be plenty.I know I am one of the Greeks, I know I sailedWith them, I warred against the gods of Ilium,I admit all that; drown me for evil-doing,Cut me to pieces, scatter me over the waves.Kill me. If I must die, it will be a pleasureTo perish at the hands of men.’ He heldOur knees and clung there, grovelling before us.We urged him tell his story, his race, his fortune.My father gave him his hand, a pledge of safety,And his fear died down a little.‘I come,’ he said,‘From Ithaca, a companion of Ulysses;My name is Achaemenides; my father,His name was Adamastus, was a poor man,And that was why I came to Troy. My comradesLeft me behind here, in their terrible hurry,To leave these cruel thresholds. The Cyclops live hereIn a dark cave, a house of gore, and banquetsSoaking with blood. It is dark inside there, monstrous.He hits the stars with his head—Dear gods, abolishThis creature from the world!—he is not easyTo look at; he is terrible to talk to.His food is the flesh of men, his drink their blood.I saw him once myself, with two of our menIn that huge fist of his; he lay on his backIn the midst of the cave, and smashed them on a rock,And the whole place swam with blood; I watched him chew themThe limbs with black clots dripping, the muscles, warm,Quivering as he bit them. But we got him!Ulysses did not stand for this; he keptHis wits about him, never mind the danger.The giant was gorged with food, and drunk, and lollingWith sagging neck, sprawling all over the cavernBelching and drooling blood-clots, bits of flesh,And wine all mixed together. And we stoodAround him, praying, and drew lots,—we had found a stakeAnd sharpened it at the end,—and so we boredHis big eye out; it glowered under his foreheadThe size of a shield, or a sun. So we got vengeanceFor the souls of our companions. But flee, I tell you,Get out of here, poor wretches, cut the cables,Forsake this shore. There are a hundred othersAs big as he is, and just like him, keepingSheep in the caves of the rocks, a hundred othersWander around this coast and these high mountains.I have managed for three months, hiding in forests,In the caves of beasts, on a rocky look-out, watchingThe Cyclops, horribly frightened at their criesAnd the tramp of their feet. I have lived on plants and berries,Gnawed roots and bark. I saw this fleet come in,And I did not care; whatever it was, I gladlyGave myself up. At least, I have escaped them.Whatever death you give is more than welcome.’And as he finished, we saw that very giant,The shepherd Polyphemus, looming hugeOver his tiny flock; he was trying to findHis way to the shore he knew, a shapeless monster,Lumbering, clumping, blind in the dark, with a stumble,And the step held up with trunk of a pine. No comfortFor him, except in the sheep. He reached the sand,Wading into the sea, and scooped up waterTo wash the ooze of blood from the socket’s hollow,Grinding his teeth against the pain, and roaring,And striding into the water, but even soThe waves were hardly up to his sides. We fledTaking on board our Greek; we cut the cable,Strained every nerve at the oars. He heard, and struggledToward the splash of the wave, but of course he could not catch us,And then he howled in a rage, and the sea was frightened,Italy deeply shaken, and all EtnaRumbled in echoing terror in her caverns.Out of the woods and the thicket of the mountainsThe Cyclops came, the others, toward the harbor,Along the coast-line. We could see them standingIn impotent anger, the wild eye-ball glaring,A grim assortment, brothers, tall as mountainsWhere oak and cypress tower, in the grovesOf Jove or great Diana. In our speedAnd terror, we sailed anywhere, forgettingWhat Helenus had said: Scylla, Charybdis,Were nothing to us then. But we rememberedIn time, and a north wind came from strait Pelorus,We passed Pantagia, and the harbor-mouthSet in the living-rock, Thapsus, low-lying,The bay called Megara: all these were placesThat Achaemenides knew well, recallingThe scenes of former wanderings with Ulysses.An island faces the Sicanian bayAgainst Plemyrium, washed by waves; this islandHas an old name, Ortygia. The storyTells of a river, Alpheus, come from Elis,By a secret channel undersea, to joinThe Arethusan fountains, mingling hereWith the Sicilian waters. Here we worshippedThe land’s great gods; went on, to pass Helorus,A rich and marshy land; and then PachynusWhere the cliffs rose sharp and high; and Camerina,With firm foundation; the Geloan plains,And Gela, named for a river; then Acragas,A towering town, high-walled, and sometime famousFor its breed of horses; the city of palms, Selinus;The shoals of Lilybaeum, where the rocksAre a hidden danger; so at last we cameTo Drepanum, a harbor and a shorelineThat I could not rejoice in, a survivorOf all those storms of the sea. For here I lostMy comforter in all my care and trouble,My father Anchises. All the storms and perils,All of the weariness endured, seemed nothingCompared with this disaster; and I hadNo warning of it; neither Helenus,Though he foretold much trouble, nor Celaeno,That evil harpy, prophesied this sorrow.There was nothing more to bear; the long roads endedAt that unhappy goal; and when I left there,Some god or other brought me to your shores.’And so he told the story, a lonely manTo eager listeners, destiny and voyage,And made an end of it here, ceased, and was quiet.
“After the gods’ decision to overthrowThe Asian world, the innocent house of Priam,And the proud city, built by Neptune, smokedFrom the ruined ground, we were driven, different ways,By heaven’s auguries, seeking lands forsaken.Below Antandros, under Phrygian Ida,We built a fleet, and gathered men, uncertainOf either direction or settlement. The summerHad scarce begun, when at my father’s orders,We spread our sails. I wept as I left the harbor,The fields where Troy had been. I was borne, an exileOver the deep, with son, companions, household,And household gods.Far off there lies a land,Sacred to Mars; the Thracians used to till it,Whose king was fierce Lycurgus; they were friendly,Of old, to Troy, when we were prosperous. HitherI sailed, and on its curving shore establishedA city site; Aeneadae, I called it.This I began, not knowing fate was adverse.I was offering my mother proper homage,And other gods, to bless the new beginnings,I had a white bull ready as a victimTo the king of the gods. There was a mound nearby,Bristling with myrtle and with cornel-bushes.I needed greenery to veil the altar,But as I struggled with the leafy branches,A fearful portent met my gaze. Black dropsDripped from the ends of the roots, black blood was fallingOn the torn ground, and a cold chill went through me.I tried again; the shoot resisted; bloodFollowed again. Troubled, I prayed to the Nymphs,To the father of the fields, to bless the vision,Remove the curse; and down on my knees I wrestledOnce more against the stubborn ground, and heardA groan from under the hillock, and a voice crying:‘Why mangle a poor wretch, Aeneas? Spare me,Here in the tomb, and save your hands pollution.You know me, I am Trojan-born, no stranger,This is familiar blood. Alas! Take flight,Leave this remorseless land; the curse of greedLies heavy on it. I am Polydorus,Pierced by an iron harvest; out of my bodyRise javelins and lances.’ I was speechless,Stunned, in my terror.Priam, forever unfortunate, had sentThis Polydorus on a secret mission,Once, to the king of Thrace, with gold for hidingWhen the king despaired of the siege and the city’s fortune.And when Troy fell, and Fortune failed, the ThracianTook Agamemnon’s side, broke off his duty,Slew Polydorus, took the gold. There is nothingTo which men are not driven by that hunger.Once over my fear, I summoned all the leaders,My father, too; I told them of the portent,Asked for their counsel. All agreed, a landSo stained with violence and violationWas not for us to dwell in. Southward ho!For Polydorus we made restorationWith funeral rites anew; earth rose againAbove his outraged mound; dark fillets madeThe altar sorrowful, and cypress boughs,And the Trojan women loosed their hair in mourning.We offered milk in foaming bowls, and bloodWarm from the victims, so to rest the spirit,And cry aloud the voice of valediction.Then, when we trust the sea again, and the windCalls with a gentle whisper, we crowd the shores,Launch ship again, leave port, the lands and citiesFade out of sight once more.There is an islandIn the middle of the sea; the Nereids’ motherAnd Neptune hold it sacred. It used to wanderBy various coasts and shores, until Apollo,In grateful memory, bound it fast, unmoving,Unfearful of winds, between two other islandsCalled Myconos and Gyaros. I sailed there;Our band was weary, and the calmest harborGave us safe haven. This was Apollo’s city;We worshipped it on landing. And their king,Priest of Apollo also, came to meet us,His temples bound with holy fillets, and laurel.His name was Anius; he knew AnchisesAs an old friend, and gave us joyful welcome.Apollo’s temple was built of ancient rock,And there I prayed: ‘Grant us a home, Apollo,Give walls to weary men, a race, a cityThat will abide; preserve Troy’s other fortress,The remnant left by the Greeks and hard Achilles.Whom do we follow? where are we bidden to goTo find our settlement? An omen, father!’I had scarcely spoken, when suddenly all things trembled,The doors, and the laurel, and the whole mountain moved,And the shrine was opened, and a rumbling soundWas heard. We knelt, most humbly; and a voiceCame to our ears: ‘The land which brought you forth,Men of endurance, will receive you home.Seek out your ancient mother. There your houseWill rule above all lands, your children’s children,For countless generations.’ Apollo spoke,And we were joyful and confused, together:What walls were those, calling the wanderers home?My father, pondering history, made answer:‘Hear, leaders; learn your hopes. There is a landCalled Crete, an island in the midst of the sea,The cradle of our race; it has a mountain,Ida, like ours, a hundred mighty cities,Abounding wealth; if I recall correctly,Teucer, our greatest father, came from thereTo the Rhoetean shores to found his kingdom.Ilium was nothing then, the towers of TroyUndreamed of; men lived in the lowly valleys.And Cybele, the Great Mother, came from CreteWith her clashing cymbals, and her grove of IdaWas named from that original; the silenceOf her mysterious rites, the harnessed lionsBefore her chariot wheels, all testifyTo Cretan legend. Come, then, let us followWhere the gods lead, and seek the Cretan kingdom.It is not far; with Jupiter to favor,Three days will see us there.’ With prayer, he madeMost solemn sacrifice, a bull to Neptune,One to Apollo, to Winter a black heifer,A white one for fair winds.The story ranThat no one lived in Crete, IdomeneusHaving left his father’s kingdom, that the housesWere empty now, dwellings vacated for us.We sailed from Delos, flying over the waterPast Naxos, on whose heights the Bacchae revel,Past green Donysa, snowy Paros, skimmingThe passages between the sea-sown islands.No crew would yield to another; there is shouting,And the cheer goes up, ‘To Crete, and the land of our fathers!’A stern wind follows, and we reach the land.I am glad to be there; I lay out the wallsFor the chosen city, name it Pergamea,And the people are happy.Love your hearths, I told them,Build high the citadel. The ships were steadiedOn the dry beach, the young were busy ploughing,Or planning marriage, and I was giving laws,Assigning homes. But the weather turned, the skyGrew sick, and from the tainted heaven camePestilence and pollution, a deadly yearFor people and harvest. Those who were not dyingDragged weary bodies around; the Dog-Star scorchedThe fields to barrenness; grass withered, cornRefused to ripen. ‘Over the sea again!’My father said, ‘let us return to Delos,Consult the oracle, implore ApolloTo show us kindliness; what end awaitsOur weary destiny, where does he bid us turnFor help in trouble?’Sleep held all creatures over the earth at rest;In my own darkness visions came, the sacredImages of the household gods I had carriedWith me from Troy, out of the burning city.I saw them plain, in the flood of light, where the moonStreamed through the dormers. And they eased me, saying:‘Apollo would tell you this, if you went overThe sea again to Delos; from him we comeTo you, with willing spirit. We came with youFrom the burnt city, we have followed stillThe swollen sea in the ships; in time to comeWe shall raise your sons to heaven, and dominionShall crown their city. Prepare to build them walls,Great homes for greatness; do not flee the labor,The long, long toil of flight. Crete, says Apollo,Is not the place. There is a land in the West,Called by the Greeks, Hesperia: anciencyAnd might in arms and wealth enrich its soil.The Oenotrians lived there once; now, rumor has it,A younger race has called it ItalyAfter the name of a leader, Italus.Dardanus came from there, our ancestor,As Iasius was. There is our dwelling-place.Be happy, then, waken, and tell AnchisesOur certain message: seek the land in the West.Crete is forbidden country.’The vision shook me, and the voice of the gods;(It was not a dream, exactly; I seemed to know them,Their features, the veiled hair, the living presence.)I woke in a sweat, held out my hands to heaven,And poured the pure libation for the altar,Then, gladly, to Anchises. He acknowledgedHis own mistake, a natural confusion,Our stock was double, of course; no need of sayingWe had more ancestors than one. ‘Cassandra,’Anchises said, ‘alone, now I remember,Foretold this fate; it seemed she was always talkingOf a land in the West, and Italian kingdoms, always.But who would ever have thought that any TrojansWould reach the shores in the West? Or, for that matter,Who ever believed Cassandra? Let us yieldTo the warning of Apollo, and at his biddingSeek better fortunes.’ So we obeyed him,Leaving this place, where a few stayed, and sailingThe hollow keels over the mighty ocean.We were in deep water, and the land no longerWas visible, sky and ocean everywhere.A cloud, black-blue, loomed overhead, with nightAnd tempest in it, and the water roughenedIn shadow; winds piled up the sea, the billowsRose higher; we were scattered in the surges.Clouds took away the daylight, and the nightWas dark and wet in the sky, with lightning flashing.We wandered, off our course, in the dark of ocean,And our pilot, Palinurus, swore he could notTell day from night, nor the way among the waters.For three lost days, three starless nights, we rode it,Saw land on the fourth, mountains and smoke arising.The sails came down, we bent to the oars; the sailorsMade the foam fly, sweeping the dark blue water.I was saved from the waves; the Strophades received me,(The word means Turning-point in the Greek language),Ionian islands where the dire CelaenoAnd other Harpies live, since Phineus’ houseWas closed to them, and they feared their former tables.No fiercer plague of the gods’ anger everRose out of hell, girls with the look of birds,Their bellies fouled, incontinent, their handsLike talons, and their faces pale with hunger.We sailed into the harbor, happy to seeGood herds of cattle grazing over the grassAnd goats, unshepherded. We cut them downAnd made our prayer and offering to Jove,Set trestles on the curving shore for feasting.Down from the mountains with a fearful rushAnd a sound of wings like metal came the Harpies,To seize our banquet, smearing dirtinessOver it all, with a hideous kind of screamingAnd a stinking smell. We found a secret hollowEnclosed by trees, under a ledge of rock,Where shade played over; there we moved the tablesAnd lit the fire again; the noisy HarpiesCame out of somewhere, sky, or rock, and harriedThe feast again, the filthy talons grabbing,The taint all through the air.Take arms, I ordered,We have to fight them. And my comrades, hidingTheir shields in the grass, lay with their swords beside them,And when the birds swooped screaming, and Misenus,Sounded the trumpet-signal, they rose to charge them,A curious kind of battle, men with sword-bladesAgainst the winged obscenities of ocean.Their feathers felt no blow, their backs no wound,They rose to the sky as rapidly as ever,Leaving the souvenirs of their foul tracesOver the ruined feast. And one, Celaeno,Perched on a lofty rock, squawked out a warning:—‘Is it war you want, for slaughtered goats and bullocks,Is it war you bring, you sons of liars, drivingThe innocent Harpies from their father’s kingdom?Take notice, then, and let my words foreverStick in your hearts; what Jove has told Apollo,Apollo told me, and I, the greatest fury,Shove down your throats; it is Italy you are after,And the winds will help you, Italy and her harborsYou will reach, all right; but you will not wall the cityTill, for the wrong you have done us, deadly hungerWill make you gnaw and crunch your very tables!’She flew back to the forest. My companionsWere chilled with sudden fear; their spirit wavered,They call on me, to beg for peace, not nowWith arms, but vows and praying, filthy birdsOr ill-foreboding goddesses, no matter.Anchises prayed with outstretched hands, appeasingThe mighty gods with sacrifice:—‘Be gracious,Great gods, ward off the threats, spare the devoted!’He bade us tear the cable from the shore,Shake loose the sails. And a wind sprang up behind us,Driving us northward; we passed many islands,Zacynthus, wooded, Dulichium, and Same,The cliffs of Neritus, Laertes’ kingdom,With a curse as we went by for Ithaca,Land of Ulysses. Soon Leucate’s headlandCame into view, a dreadful place for sailors,Where Apollo had a shrine. We were very wearyAs we drew near the little town; the anchorWas thrown from the prow, the sterns pulled up on the beaches.This was unhoped-for land; we offered JoveOur purifying rites, and had the altarsBurning with sacrifice. We thronged the shoreWith games of Ilium. Naked, oiled for wrestling,The young held bouts, glad that so many islandsHeld by the Greeks, were safely passed. A yearWent by, and icy winter roughened the wavesWith gales from the north. A shield of hollow bronze,Borne once by Abas, I fastened to the door-posts,And set a verse below it:Aeneas wonThese arms from the Greek victors.I gave the orderTo man the thwarts and leave this harbor; allObeyed, swept oars in rivalry. We leftPhaeacia’s airy heights, coasting Epirus,Drawn to Buthrotum, a Chaonian harbor.And here we met strange news, that Helenus,The son of Priam, was ruling Grecian cities,Having won the wife of Pyrrhus and his crown,And that Andromache once more had marriedA lord of her own race. Amazed, I burnWith a strange longing to seek out that hero,To learn his great adventures. It so happened,Just as I left the landing, that was the dayAndromache, in a grove before the city,By the waters of a river that resembledThe Simois at home, was offering homage,Her annual mourning-gift to Hector’s ashes,Calling his ghost to the place which she had hallowedWith double altars, a green and empty tomb.I found her weeping there, and she was startledAt the sight of me, and Trojan arms, a shockToo great to bear: she was rigid for a moment,And then lost consciousness, and a long time laterManaged to speak: ‘Is it real, then, goddess-born?What are you, living messenger or phantom,Mortal or ghost? If the dear light has left you,Tell me where Hector is.’ I was moved, so deeplyI found it hard to answer to her tearsAnd through my own, but I did say a little:—‘I am alive; I seem to keep on livingThrough all extremes of trouble; do not doubt me,I am no apparition. And what has happenedTo you, dear wife of Hector? Could any gainAtone for such a loss? Has fortune triedTo even matters at all? Does Pyrrhus stillPresume on you as husband?’ With lowered gazeAnd quiet voice she answered:—‘Happy the maidenSlain at the foeman’s tomb, at the foot of the walls;Happy the daughter of Priam, who never knewThe drawing of the lots, nor came to the bedOf a conqueror, his captive. After the fireI travelled different seas, endured the prideAchilles filled his son with, bore him childrenIn bondage, till he tired of me and left meFor Leda’s daughter and a Spartan marriage.He passed me on to Helenus, fair enough,Slave-woman to slave-man; but then Orestes,Inflamed with passion for his stolen bride,And maddened by the Furies of his vengeance,Caught Pyrrhus off-guard, and slew him at the altarIn his ancestral home. And Pyrrhus dying,Part of the kingdom came to Helenus,Who named the fields Chaonian, the landChaonia, after a man from Troy,And filled the heights, as best he could, with buildingsTo look like those we knew. But what of yourself?What winds, what fate, have brought you here, or was itSome god? did you know you were on our coast? How isThe boy Ascanius, living still, whom TroyMight have—does he ever think about his mother?Does he want to be a hero, a manly spirit,Such as his father was, and his uncle Hector?’She was in tears again, when the son of Priam,Helenus, with an escort, came from the city,Happy to recognize us, bringing us inWith tears and greeting mingled. I went on,Seeing a little Troy, low walls that copiedThe old majestic ramparts, a tiny riverIn a dry bed, trying to be the Xanthus,I found the Scaean gates, to hold and cling to.My Trojans, too, were fond of the friendly town,Whose king received them in wide halls; libationsWere poured to the gods, and feasts set on gold dishes.Day after day went by, and the winds were callingAnd the sails filling with a good south-wester.I put my questions to the king and prophet:‘O son of Troy, the god’s interpreter,Familiar with the tripod and the laurelOf great Apollo, versed in stars and omens,Bird-song and flying wing, be gracious to me,Tell me,—for Heaven has prophesied a journeyWithout mischance, and all the gods have sent meThe counsel of their oracles, to followItaly and a far-off country; one,But one, Celaeno, prophesied misfortune,Wrath and revolting hunger,—tell me, prophet,What dangers first to avoid, what presence followTo overcome disaster?’Bullocks slainWith proper covenant, and the chaplets loosened,He led me to the temple of Apollo,The very gates, where the god’s presence awed me,And where he spoke, with eloquent inspiration:—‘O goddess-born, the journey over the seaHolds a clear sanction for you, under Jove,Who draws the lots and turns the wheel of Fate.I will tell you some few things, not all, that safelyYou may go through friendly waters, and in timeCome to Ausonian harborage; the restHelenus does not know, or, if he did,Juno would stop his speaking. First of all,Italy, which you think is near, too fondlyReady to enter her nearest port, is distant,Divided from you by a pathless journeyAnd longer lands between. The oar must bendIn the Sicilian ocean, and the shipsSail on a farther coast, beyond the lakesOf an infernal world, beyond the islesWhere dwells Aeaean Circe, not till thenCan the built city rise on friendly ground.Keep in the mind the sign I give you now:One day, when you are anxious and aloneAt the wave of a hidden river, you will findUnder the oaks on the shore, a sow, a white one,Immense, with a new-born litter, thirty youngAt the old one’s udders; that will be the place,The site of the city, the certain rest from labor.And do not fear the eating of the tables,The fates will find a way, Apollo answer.Avoid this coast of Italy, the landsJust westward of our own; behind those wallsDwell evil Greeks, Narycian Locri, soldiersOf the Cretan king, Idomeneus; the plainsAre full of them; a Meliboean captainGoverns Petelia, a tiny townRelying on her fortress! PhiloctetesCommands her walls. And furthermore, remember,Even when the ships have crossed the sea and anchored,When the altars stand on the shore, and the vows are paid,Keep the hair veiled, and the robe of crimson drawnAcross the eyes, so that no hostile visageMay interfere, to gaze on the holy fireOr spoil the sacred omens. This rite observeThrough all the generations; keep it holy.From that first landing, when the wind brings you downTo Sicily’s coast, and narrow Pelorus widensThe waters of her strait, keep to the left,Land on the left, and water on the left,The long way round; the right is dangerous.Avoid it. There’s a story that this landOnce broke apart—(time brings so many changes)—By some immense convulsion, though the landsHad been one country once. But now between themThe sea comes in, and now the waters boundItalian coast, Sicilian coast; the tideWashes on severed shores, their fields, their cities.Scylla keeps guard on the right; on the left Charybdis,The unappeasable; from the deep gulf she sucksThe great waves down, three times; three times she belchesThem high up into the air, and sprays the stars.Scylla is held in a cave, a den of darkness,From where she thrusts her huge jaws out, and drawsShips to her jagged rocks. She looks like a girlFair-breasted to the waist, from there, all monster,Shapeless, with dolphins’ tails, and a wolf’s belly.Better to go the long way round, make turningBeyond Pachynus, than to catch one glimpseOf Scylla the misshapen, in her cavern,And the rocks resounding with the dark-blue sea-hounds.And one thing more than any, goddess-born,I tell you over and over: pray to Juno,Give Juno vows and gifts and overcome herWith everlasting worship. So you will comePast Sicily and reach Italian beaches.You will come to a town called Cumae, haunted lakes,And a forest called Avernus, where the leavesRustle and stir in the great woods, and thereYou will find a priestess, in her wildness singingProphetic verses under the stones, and keepingSymbols and signs on leaves. She files and stores themIn the depth of the cave; there they remain unmoving,Keeping their order, but if a light wind stirsAt the turn of a hinge, and the door’s draft disturbs them,The priestess never cares to catch them flutteringAround the halls of rock, put them in order,Or give them rearrangement. Men who have come thereFor guidance leave uncounselled, and they hateThe Sibyl’s dwelling. Let no loss of time,However comrades chide and chafe, howeverThe wind’s voice calls the sail, postpone the visitTo this great priestess; plead with her to tell youWith her own lips the song of the oracles.She will predict the wars to come, the nationsOf Italy, the toils to face, or flee from;Meet her with reverence, and she, propitious,Will grant a happy course. My voice can tell youNo more than this. Farewell; raise Troy to heaven.’After the friendly counsel, other giftsWere sent to our ships, carved ivory, and gold,And heavy silver, cauldrons from Dodona,A triple breastplate linked with gold, a helmetShining with crested plume, the arms of Pyrrhus.My father, too, has gifts; horses and guidesAre added, and sailing-men, and arms for my comrades.Anchises bade the fleet prepare; the windWas rising, why delay? But HelenusSpoke to Anchises, in compliment and honor:—‘Anchises, worthy of Venus’ couch, and the blessingOf other gods, twice saved from Trojan ruins,Yonder behold Ausonia! Near, and far,It lies, Apollo’s offering; sail westward.Farewell, made blest by a son’s goodness. IAm a nuisance with my talking.’And his queen,Sad at the final parting, was bringing gifts,Robes woven with a golden thread, a TrojanScarf for Ascanius, all courteous honorGiven with these:—‘Take them, my child; these areThe work of my own hands, memorialsOf Hector’s wife Andromache, and her love.Receive these farewell gifts; they are for oneWho brings my own son back to me; your hands,Your face, your eyes, remind me of him so,—He would be just your age.’I, also, wept,As I spoke my words of parting: ‘Now farewell;Your lot is finished, and your rest is won,No ocean fields to plough, no fleeing fieldsTo follow, you have your Xanthus and your Troy,Built by your hands, and blest by happier omens,Far from the path of the Greeks. But we are calledFrom fate to fate; if ever I enter TiberAnd Tiber’s neighboring lands, if ever I seeThe walls vouchsafed my people, I pray these shores,Italy and Epirus, shall be one,The life of Troy restored, with friendly townsAnd allied people. A common origin,A common fall, was ours. Let us remember,And our children keep the faith.’Over the sea we rode, the shortest runTo Italy, past the Ceraunian rocks.The sun went down; the hills were dark with shadow.The oars assigned, we drew in to the landFor a little welcome rest; sleep overcame us,But it was not yet midnight when our pilotSprang from his blanket, studying the winds,Alert and listening, noting the starsWheeling the silent heaven, the twin Oxen,Arcturus and the rainy Kids. All calm,He saw, and roused us; camp was broken; the sailSpread to the rushing breeze, and as day reddenedAnd the stars faded, we saw a coast, low-lying,And made out hills. ‘Italy!’, cried Achates,‘Italy!’ all the happy sailors shouted.Anchises wreathed a royal wine-bowl, stoodOn the high stern, calling:—‘Gods of earth and oceanAnd wind and storm, help us along, propitiousWith favoring breath!’ And the breeze sprang up, and freshened;We saw a harbor open, and a templeShone on Minerva’s headland. The sails came down,We headed toward the land. Like the curve of a bowThe port turned in from the Eastern waves; its cliffsFoamed with the salty spray, and towering rocksCame down to the sea, on both sides, double walls,And the temple fled the shore. Here, our first omen,I saw four horses grazing, white as snow,And father Anchises cried:—‘It is war you bring us,Welcoming land, horses are armed for war,It is war these herds portend. But there is hopeOf peace as well. Horses will bend to the yokeAnd bear the bridle tamely.’ Then we worshippedThe holy power of Pallas, first to hear us,Kept our heads veiled before the solemn altar,And following Helenus’ injunction, offeredOur deepest prayer to Juno.And sailed on,With some misgiving, past the homes of Greeks;Saw, next, a bay, Tarentum, and a townThat rumor said was Hercules’; against it,The towers of Caulon rose, and Scylaceum,Most dangerous to ships, and a temple of Juno.Far off, Sicilian Etna rose from the waves,And we heard the loud sea roar, and the rocks resounding,And voices broken on the coast; the shoalsLeaped at us, and the tide boiled sand. My fatherCried in alarm:—‘This must be that CharybdisHelenus warned us of. Rise to the oars,O comrades, pull from the danger!’ They respondedAs they did, always, Palinurus swingingThe prow to the waves on the left, and all our effortStrained to the left, with oars and sail. One momentWe were in the clouds, the next in the gulf of Hell;Three times the hollow rocks and reefs roared at us,Three times we saw spray shower the very stars,And the wind went down at sunset; we were weary,Drifting, in ignorance, to the Cyclops shores.There is a harbor, safe enough from wind,But Etna thunders near it, crashing and roaring,Throwing black clouds up to the sky, and smokingWith swirling pitchy color, and white-hot ashes,With balls of flame puffed to the stars, and boulders,The mountain’s guts, belched out, or molten rockBoiling below the ground, roaring above it.The story goes that Enceladus, a giant,Struck by a bolt of lightning, lies here buriedBeneath all Etna’s weight, with the flames pouringThrough the broken furnace-flues; he shifts his body,Every so often, to rest his weariness,And then all Sicily seems to moan and trembleAnd fill the sky with smoke. We spent the night here,Hiding in woods, enduring monstrous portents,Unable to learn the cause. There were no stars,No light or fire in the sky; the dead of the night,The thick of the cloud, obscured the moon.And dayArrived, at last, and the shadows left the heaven,And a man came out of the woods, a sorry figure,In hunger’s final stages, reaching toward usHis outstretched hands. We looked again. His beardUnshorn, his rags pinned up with thorns, and dirty,He was, beyond all doubt of it, a Greek,And one of those who had been at Troy in the fighting.He saw, far off, the Trojan dress and armor,Stopped short, for a moment, almost started backIn panic, then, with a wild rush, came on,Pleading and crying:—‘By the stars I beg you,By the gods above, the air we breathe, ah Trojans,Take me away from here, carry me offTo any land whatever; that will be plenty.I know I am one of the Greeks, I know I sailedWith them, I warred against the gods of Ilium,I admit all that; drown me for evil-doing,Cut me to pieces, scatter me over the waves.Kill me. If I must die, it will be a pleasureTo perish at the hands of men.’ He heldOur knees and clung there, grovelling before us.We urged him tell his story, his race, his fortune.My father gave him his hand, a pledge of safety,And his fear died down a little.‘I come,’ he said,‘From Ithaca, a companion of Ulysses;My name is Achaemenides; my father,His name was Adamastus, was a poor man,And that was why I came to Troy. My comradesLeft me behind here, in their terrible hurry,To leave these cruel thresholds. The Cyclops live hereIn a dark cave, a house of gore, and banquetsSoaking with blood. It is dark inside there, monstrous.He hits the stars with his head—Dear gods, abolishThis creature from the world!—he is not easyTo look at; he is terrible to talk to.His food is the flesh of men, his drink their blood.I saw him once myself, with two of our menIn that huge fist of his; he lay on his backIn the midst of the cave, and smashed them on a rock,And the whole place swam with blood; I watched him chew themThe limbs with black clots dripping, the muscles, warm,Quivering as he bit them. But we got him!Ulysses did not stand for this; he keptHis wits about him, never mind the danger.The giant was gorged with food, and drunk, and lollingWith sagging neck, sprawling all over the cavernBelching and drooling blood-clots, bits of flesh,And wine all mixed together. And we stoodAround him, praying, and drew lots,—we had found a stakeAnd sharpened it at the end,—and so we boredHis big eye out; it glowered under his foreheadThe size of a shield, or a sun. So we got vengeanceFor the souls of our companions. But flee, I tell you,Get out of here, poor wretches, cut the cables,Forsake this shore. There are a hundred othersAs big as he is, and just like him, keepingSheep in the caves of the rocks, a hundred othersWander around this coast and these high mountains.I have managed for three months, hiding in forests,In the caves of beasts, on a rocky look-out, watchingThe Cyclops, horribly frightened at their criesAnd the tramp of their feet. I have lived on plants and berries,Gnawed roots and bark. I saw this fleet come in,And I did not care; whatever it was, I gladlyGave myself up. At least, I have escaped them.Whatever death you give is more than welcome.’And as he finished, we saw that very giant,The shepherd Polyphemus, looming hugeOver his tiny flock; he was trying to findHis way to the shore he knew, a shapeless monster,Lumbering, clumping, blind in the dark, with a stumble,And the step held up with trunk of a pine. No comfortFor him, except in the sheep. He reached the sand,Wading into the sea, and scooped up waterTo wash the ooze of blood from the socket’s hollow,Grinding his teeth against the pain, and roaring,And striding into the water, but even soThe waves were hardly up to his sides. We fledTaking on board our Greek; we cut the cable,Strained every nerve at the oars. He heard, and struggledToward the splash of the wave, but of course he could not catch us,And then he howled in a rage, and the sea was frightened,Italy deeply shaken, and all EtnaRumbled in echoing terror in her caverns.Out of the woods and the thicket of the mountainsThe Cyclops came, the others, toward the harbor,Along the coast-line. We could see them standingIn impotent anger, the wild eye-ball glaring,A grim assortment, brothers, tall as mountainsWhere oak and cypress tower, in the grovesOf Jove or great Diana. In our speedAnd terror, we sailed anywhere, forgettingWhat Helenus had said: Scylla, Charybdis,Were nothing to us then. But we rememberedIn time, and a north wind came from strait Pelorus,We passed Pantagia, and the harbor-mouthSet in the living-rock, Thapsus, low-lying,The bay called Megara: all these were placesThat Achaemenides knew well, recallingThe scenes of former wanderings with Ulysses.An island faces the Sicanian bayAgainst Plemyrium, washed by waves; this islandHas an old name, Ortygia. The storyTells of a river, Alpheus, come from Elis,By a secret channel undersea, to joinThe Arethusan fountains, mingling hereWith the Sicilian waters. Here we worshippedThe land’s great gods; went on, to pass Helorus,A rich and marshy land; and then PachynusWhere the cliffs rose sharp and high; and Camerina,With firm foundation; the Geloan plains,And Gela, named for a river; then Acragas,A towering town, high-walled, and sometime famousFor its breed of horses; the city of palms, Selinus;The shoals of Lilybaeum, where the rocksAre a hidden danger; so at last we cameTo Drepanum, a harbor and a shorelineThat I could not rejoice in, a survivorOf all those storms of the sea. For here I lostMy comforter in all my care and trouble,My father Anchises. All the storms and perils,All of the weariness endured, seemed nothingCompared with this disaster; and I hadNo warning of it; neither Helenus,Though he foretold much trouble, nor Celaeno,That evil harpy, prophesied this sorrow.There was nothing more to bear; the long roads endedAt that unhappy goal; and when I left there,Some god or other brought me to your shores.’And so he told the story, a lonely manTo eager listeners, destiny and voyage,And made an end of it here, ceased, and was quiet.
“After the gods’ decision to overthrowThe Asian world, the innocent house of Priam,And the proud city, built by Neptune, smokedFrom the ruined ground, we were driven, different ways,By heaven’s auguries, seeking lands forsaken.Below Antandros, under Phrygian Ida,We built a fleet, and gathered men, uncertainOf either direction or settlement. The summerHad scarce begun, when at my father’s orders,We spread our sails. I wept as I left the harbor,The fields where Troy had been. I was borne, an exileOver the deep, with son, companions, household,And household gods.
Far off there lies a land,Sacred to Mars; the Thracians used to till it,Whose king was fierce Lycurgus; they were friendly,Of old, to Troy, when we were prosperous. HitherI sailed, and on its curving shore establishedA city site; Aeneadae, I called it.This I began, not knowing fate was adverse.
I was offering my mother proper homage,And other gods, to bless the new beginnings,I had a white bull ready as a victimTo the king of the gods. There was a mound nearby,Bristling with myrtle and with cornel-bushes.I needed greenery to veil the altar,But as I struggled with the leafy branches,A fearful portent met my gaze. Black dropsDripped from the ends of the roots, black blood was fallingOn the torn ground, and a cold chill went through me.I tried again; the shoot resisted; bloodFollowed again. Troubled, I prayed to the Nymphs,To the father of the fields, to bless the vision,Remove the curse; and down on my knees I wrestledOnce more against the stubborn ground, and heardA groan from under the hillock, and a voice crying:‘Why mangle a poor wretch, Aeneas? Spare me,Here in the tomb, and save your hands pollution.You know me, I am Trojan-born, no stranger,This is familiar blood. Alas! Take flight,Leave this remorseless land; the curse of greedLies heavy on it. I am Polydorus,Pierced by an iron harvest; out of my bodyRise javelins and lances.’ I was speechless,Stunned, in my terror.
Priam, forever unfortunate, had sentThis Polydorus on a secret mission,Once, to the king of Thrace, with gold for hidingWhen the king despaired of the siege and the city’s fortune.And when Troy fell, and Fortune failed, the ThracianTook Agamemnon’s side, broke off his duty,Slew Polydorus, took the gold. There is nothingTo which men are not driven by that hunger.Once over my fear, I summoned all the leaders,My father, too; I told them of the portent,Asked for their counsel. All agreed, a landSo stained with violence and violationWas not for us to dwell in. Southward ho!For Polydorus we made restorationWith funeral rites anew; earth rose againAbove his outraged mound; dark fillets madeThe altar sorrowful, and cypress boughs,And the Trojan women loosed their hair in mourning.We offered milk in foaming bowls, and bloodWarm from the victims, so to rest the spirit,And cry aloud the voice of valediction.
Then, when we trust the sea again, and the windCalls with a gentle whisper, we crowd the shores,Launch ship again, leave port, the lands and citiesFade out of sight once more.
There is an islandIn the middle of the sea; the Nereids’ motherAnd Neptune hold it sacred. It used to wanderBy various coasts and shores, until Apollo,In grateful memory, bound it fast, unmoving,Unfearful of winds, between two other islandsCalled Myconos and Gyaros. I sailed there;Our band was weary, and the calmest harborGave us safe haven. This was Apollo’s city;We worshipped it on landing. And their king,Priest of Apollo also, came to meet us,His temples bound with holy fillets, and laurel.His name was Anius; he knew AnchisesAs an old friend, and gave us joyful welcome.
Apollo’s temple was built of ancient rock,And there I prayed: ‘Grant us a home, Apollo,Give walls to weary men, a race, a cityThat will abide; preserve Troy’s other fortress,The remnant left by the Greeks and hard Achilles.Whom do we follow? where are we bidden to goTo find our settlement? An omen, father!’
I had scarcely spoken, when suddenly all things trembled,The doors, and the laurel, and the whole mountain moved,And the shrine was opened, and a rumbling soundWas heard. We knelt, most humbly; and a voiceCame to our ears: ‘The land which brought you forth,Men of endurance, will receive you home.Seek out your ancient mother. There your houseWill rule above all lands, your children’s children,For countless generations.’ Apollo spoke,And we were joyful and confused, together:What walls were those, calling the wanderers home?My father, pondering history, made answer:‘Hear, leaders; learn your hopes. There is a landCalled Crete, an island in the midst of the sea,The cradle of our race; it has a mountain,Ida, like ours, a hundred mighty cities,Abounding wealth; if I recall correctly,Teucer, our greatest father, came from thereTo the Rhoetean shores to found his kingdom.Ilium was nothing then, the towers of TroyUndreamed of; men lived in the lowly valleys.And Cybele, the Great Mother, came from CreteWith her clashing cymbals, and her grove of IdaWas named from that original; the silenceOf her mysterious rites, the harnessed lionsBefore her chariot wheels, all testifyTo Cretan legend. Come, then, let us followWhere the gods lead, and seek the Cretan kingdom.It is not far; with Jupiter to favor,Three days will see us there.’ With prayer, he madeMost solemn sacrifice, a bull to Neptune,One to Apollo, to Winter a black heifer,A white one for fair winds.
The story ranThat no one lived in Crete, IdomeneusHaving left his father’s kingdom, that the housesWere empty now, dwellings vacated for us.We sailed from Delos, flying over the waterPast Naxos, on whose heights the Bacchae revel,Past green Donysa, snowy Paros, skimmingThe passages between the sea-sown islands.No crew would yield to another; there is shouting,And the cheer goes up, ‘To Crete, and the land of our fathers!’A stern wind follows, and we reach the land.I am glad to be there; I lay out the wallsFor the chosen city, name it Pergamea,And the people are happy.Love your hearths, I told them,Build high the citadel. The ships were steadiedOn the dry beach, the young were busy ploughing,Or planning marriage, and I was giving laws,Assigning homes. But the weather turned, the skyGrew sick, and from the tainted heaven camePestilence and pollution, a deadly yearFor people and harvest. Those who were not dyingDragged weary bodies around; the Dog-Star scorchedThe fields to barrenness; grass withered, cornRefused to ripen. ‘Over the sea again!’My father said, ‘let us return to Delos,Consult the oracle, implore ApolloTo show us kindliness; what end awaitsOur weary destiny, where does he bid us turnFor help in trouble?’
Sleep held all creatures over the earth at rest;In my own darkness visions came, the sacredImages of the household gods I had carriedWith me from Troy, out of the burning city.I saw them plain, in the flood of light, where the moonStreamed through the dormers. And they eased me, saying:‘Apollo would tell you this, if you went overThe sea again to Delos; from him we comeTo you, with willing spirit. We came with youFrom the burnt city, we have followed stillThe swollen sea in the ships; in time to comeWe shall raise your sons to heaven, and dominionShall crown their city. Prepare to build them walls,Great homes for greatness; do not flee the labor,The long, long toil of flight. Crete, says Apollo,Is not the place. There is a land in the West,Called by the Greeks, Hesperia: anciencyAnd might in arms and wealth enrich its soil.The Oenotrians lived there once; now, rumor has it,A younger race has called it ItalyAfter the name of a leader, Italus.Dardanus came from there, our ancestor,As Iasius was. There is our dwelling-place.Be happy, then, waken, and tell AnchisesOur certain message: seek the land in the West.Crete is forbidden country.’
The vision shook me, and the voice of the gods;(It was not a dream, exactly; I seemed to know them,Their features, the veiled hair, the living presence.)I woke in a sweat, held out my hands to heaven,And poured the pure libation for the altar,Then, gladly, to Anchises. He acknowledgedHis own mistake, a natural confusion,Our stock was double, of course; no need of sayingWe had more ancestors than one. ‘Cassandra,’Anchises said, ‘alone, now I remember,Foretold this fate; it seemed she was always talkingOf a land in the West, and Italian kingdoms, always.But who would ever have thought that any TrojansWould reach the shores in the West? Or, for that matter,Who ever believed Cassandra? Let us yieldTo the warning of Apollo, and at his biddingSeek better fortunes.’ So we obeyed him,Leaving this place, where a few stayed, and sailingThe hollow keels over the mighty ocean.
We were in deep water, and the land no longerWas visible, sky and ocean everywhere.A cloud, black-blue, loomed overhead, with nightAnd tempest in it, and the water roughenedIn shadow; winds piled up the sea, the billowsRose higher; we were scattered in the surges.Clouds took away the daylight, and the nightWas dark and wet in the sky, with lightning flashing.We wandered, off our course, in the dark of ocean,And our pilot, Palinurus, swore he could notTell day from night, nor the way among the waters.For three lost days, three starless nights, we rode it,Saw land on the fourth, mountains and smoke arising.The sails came down, we bent to the oars; the sailorsMade the foam fly, sweeping the dark blue water.I was saved from the waves; the Strophades received me,(The word means Turning-point in the Greek language),Ionian islands where the dire CelaenoAnd other Harpies live, since Phineus’ houseWas closed to them, and they feared their former tables.No fiercer plague of the gods’ anger everRose out of hell, girls with the look of birds,Their bellies fouled, incontinent, their handsLike talons, and their faces pale with hunger.We sailed into the harbor, happy to seeGood herds of cattle grazing over the grassAnd goats, unshepherded. We cut them downAnd made our prayer and offering to Jove,Set trestles on the curving shore for feasting.Down from the mountains with a fearful rushAnd a sound of wings like metal came the Harpies,To seize our banquet, smearing dirtinessOver it all, with a hideous kind of screamingAnd a stinking smell. We found a secret hollowEnclosed by trees, under a ledge of rock,Where shade played over; there we moved the tablesAnd lit the fire again; the noisy HarpiesCame out of somewhere, sky, or rock, and harriedThe feast again, the filthy talons grabbing,The taint all through the air.Take arms, I ordered,We have to fight them. And my comrades, hidingTheir shields in the grass, lay with their swords beside them,And when the birds swooped screaming, and Misenus,Sounded the trumpet-signal, they rose to charge them,A curious kind of battle, men with sword-bladesAgainst the winged obscenities of ocean.Their feathers felt no blow, their backs no wound,They rose to the sky as rapidly as ever,Leaving the souvenirs of their foul tracesOver the ruined feast. And one, Celaeno,Perched on a lofty rock, squawked out a warning:—‘Is it war you want, for slaughtered goats and bullocks,Is it war you bring, you sons of liars, drivingThe innocent Harpies from their father’s kingdom?Take notice, then, and let my words foreverStick in your hearts; what Jove has told Apollo,Apollo told me, and I, the greatest fury,Shove down your throats; it is Italy you are after,And the winds will help you, Italy and her harborsYou will reach, all right; but you will not wall the cityTill, for the wrong you have done us, deadly hungerWill make you gnaw and crunch your very tables!’She flew back to the forest. My companionsWere chilled with sudden fear; their spirit wavered,They call on me, to beg for peace, not nowWith arms, but vows and praying, filthy birdsOr ill-foreboding goddesses, no matter.Anchises prayed with outstretched hands, appeasingThe mighty gods with sacrifice:—‘Be gracious,Great gods, ward off the threats, spare the devoted!’He bade us tear the cable from the shore,Shake loose the sails. And a wind sprang up behind us,Driving us northward; we passed many islands,Zacynthus, wooded, Dulichium, and Same,The cliffs of Neritus, Laertes’ kingdom,With a curse as we went by for Ithaca,Land of Ulysses. Soon Leucate’s headlandCame into view, a dreadful place for sailors,Where Apollo had a shrine. We were very wearyAs we drew near the little town; the anchorWas thrown from the prow, the sterns pulled up on the beaches.
This was unhoped-for land; we offered JoveOur purifying rites, and had the altarsBurning with sacrifice. We thronged the shoreWith games of Ilium. Naked, oiled for wrestling,The young held bouts, glad that so many islandsHeld by the Greeks, were safely passed. A yearWent by, and icy winter roughened the wavesWith gales from the north. A shield of hollow bronze,Borne once by Abas, I fastened to the door-posts,And set a verse below it:Aeneas wonThese arms from the Greek victors.I gave the orderTo man the thwarts and leave this harbor; allObeyed, swept oars in rivalry. We leftPhaeacia’s airy heights, coasting Epirus,Drawn to Buthrotum, a Chaonian harbor.
And here we met strange news, that Helenus,The son of Priam, was ruling Grecian cities,Having won the wife of Pyrrhus and his crown,And that Andromache once more had marriedA lord of her own race. Amazed, I burnWith a strange longing to seek out that hero,To learn his great adventures. It so happened,Just as I left the landing, that was the dayAndromache, in a grove before the city,By the waters of a river that resembledThe Simois at home, was offering homage,Her annual mourning-gift to Hector’s ashes,Calling his ghost to the place which she had hallowedWith double altars, a green and empty tomb.I found her weeping there, and she was startledAt the sight of me, and Trojan arms, a shockToo great to bear: she was rigid for a moment,And then lost consciousness, and a long time laterManaged to speak: ‘Is it real, then, goddess-born?What are you, living messenger or phantom,Mortal or ghost? If the dear light has left you,Tell me where Hector is.’ I was moved, so deeplyI found it hard to answer to her tearsAnd through my own, but I did say a little:—‘I am alive; I seem to keep on livingThrough all extremes of trouble; do not doubt me,I am no apparition. And what has happenedTo you, dear wife of Hector? Could any gainAtone for such a loss? Has fortune triedTo even matters at all? Does Pyrrhus stillPresume on you as husband?’ With lowered gazeAnd quiet voice she answered:—‘Happy the maidenSlain at the foeman’s tomb, at the foot of the walls;Happy the daughter of Priam, who never knewThe drawing of the lots, nor came to the bedOf a conqueror, his captive. After the fireI travelled different seas, endured the prideAchilles filled his son with, bore him childrenIn bondage, till he tired of me and left meFor Leda’s daughter and a Spartan marriage.He passed me on to Helenus, fair enough,Slave-woman to slave-man; but then Orestes,Inflamed with passion for his stolen bride,And maddened by the Furies of his vengeance,Caught Pyrrhus off-guard, and slew him at the altarIn his ancestral home. And Pyrrhus dying,Part of the kingdom came to Helenus,Who named the fields Chaonian, the landChaonia, after a man from Troy,And filled the heights, as best he could, with buildingsTo look like those we knew. But what of yourself?What winds, what fate, have brought you here, or was itSome god? did you know you were on our coast? How isThe boy Ascanius, living still, whom TroyMight have—does he ever think about his mother?Does he want to be a hero, a manly spirit,Such as his father was, and his uncle Hector?’She was in tears again, when the son of Priam,Helenus, with an escort, came from the city,Happy to recognize us, bringing us inWith tears and greeting mingled. I went on,Seeing a little Troy, low walls that copiedThe old majestic ramparts, a tiny riverIn a dry bed, trying to be the Xanthus,I found the Scaean gates, to hold and cling to.My Trojans, too, were fond of the friendly town,Whose king received them in wide halls; libationsWere poured to the gods, and feasts set on gold dishes.
Day after day went by, and the winds were callingAnd the sails filling with a good south-wester.I put my questions to the king and prophet:‘O son of Troy, the god’s interpreter,Familiar with the tripod and the laurelOf great Apollo, versed in stars and omens,Bird-song and flying wing, be gracious to me,Tell me,—for Heaven has prophesied a journeyWithout mischance, and all the gods have sent meThe counsel of their oracles, to followItaly and a far-off country; one,But one, Celaeno, prophesied misfortune,Wrath and revolting hunger,—tell me, prophet,What dangers first to avoid, what presence followTo overcome disaster?’
Bullocks slainWith proper covenant, and the chaplets loosened,He led me to the temple of Apollo,The very gates, where the god’s presence awed me,And where he spoke, with eloquent inspiration:—‘O goddess-born, the journey over the seaHolds a clear sanction for you, under Jove,Who draws the lots and turns the wheel of Fate.I will tell you some few things, not all, that safelyYou may go through friendly waters, and in timeCome to Ausonian harborage; the restHelenus does not know, or, if he did,Juno would stop his speaking. First of all,Italy, which you think is near, too fondlyReady to enter her nearest port, is distant,Divided from you by a pathless journeyAnd longer lands between. The oar must bendIn the Sicilian ocean, and the shipsSail on a farther coast, beyond the lakesOf an infernal world, beyond the islesWhere dwells Aeaean Circe, not till thenCan the built city rise on friendly ground.Keep in the mind the sign I give you now:One day, when you are anxious and aloneAt the wave of a hidden river, you will findUnder the oaks on the shore, a sow, a white one,Immense, with a new-born litter, thirty youngAt the old one’s udders; that will be the place,The site of the city, the certain rest from labor.And do not fear the eating of the tables,The fates will find a way, Apollo answer.Avoid this coast of Italy, the landsJust westward of our own; behind those wallsDwell evil Greeks, Narycian Locri, soldiersOf the Cretan king, Idomeneus; the plainsAre full of them; a Meliboean captainGoverns Petelia, a tiny townRelying on her fortress! PhiloctetesCommands her walls. And furthermore, remember,Even when the ships have crossed the sea and anchored,When the altars stand on the shore, and the vows are paid,Keep the hair veiled, and the robe of crimson drawnAcross the eyes, so that no hostile visageMay interfere, to gaze on the holy fireOr spoil the sacred omens. This rite observeThrough all the generations; keep it holy.From that first landing, when the wind brings you downTo Sicily’s coast, and narrow Pelorus widensThe waters of her strait, keep to the left,Land on the left, and water on the left,The long way round; the right is dangerous.Avoid it. There’s a story that this landOnce broke apart—(time brings so many changes)—By some immense convulsion, though the landsHad been one country once. But now between themThe sea comes in, and now the waters boundItalian coast, Sicilian coast; the tideWashes on severed shores, their fields, their cities.Scylla keeps guard on the right; on the left Charybdis,The unappeasable; from the deep gulf she sucksThe great waves down, three times; three times she belchesThem high up into the air, and sprays the stars.Scylla is held in a cave, a den of darkness,From where she thrusts her huge jaws out, and drawsShips to her jagged rocks. She looks like a girlFair-breasted to the waist, from there, all monster,Shapeless, with dolphins’ tails, and a wolf’s belly.Better to go the long way round, make turningBeyond Pachynus, than to catch one glimpseOf Scylla the misshapen, in her cavern,And the rocks resounding with the dark-blue sea-hounds.And one thing more than any, goddess-born,I tell you over and over: pray to Juno,Give Juno vows and gifts and overcome herWith everlasting worship. So you will comePast Sicily and reach Italian beaches.You will come to a town called Cumae, haunted lakes,And a forest called Avernus, where the leavesRustle and stir in the great woods, and thereYou will find a priestess, in her wildness singingProphetic verses under the stones, and keepingSymbols and signs on leaves. She files and stores themIn the depth of the cave; there they remain unmoving,Keeping their order, but if a light wind stirsAt the turn of a hinge, and the door’s draft disturbs them,The priestess never cares to catch them flutteringAround the halls of rock, put them in order,Or give them rearrangement. Men who have come thereFor guidance leave uncounselled, and they hateThe Sibyl’s dwelling. Let no loss of time,However comrades chide and chafe, howeverThe wind’s voice calls the sail, postpone the visitTo this great priestess; plead with her to tell youWith her own lips the song of the oracles.She will predict the wars to come, the nationsOf Italy, the toils to face, or flee from;Meet her with reverence, and she, propitious,Will grant a happy course. My voice can tell youNo more than this. Farewell; raise Troy to heaven.’
After the friendly counsel, other giftsWere sent to our ships, carved ivory, and gold,And heavy silver, cauldrons from Dodona,A triple breastplate linked with gold, a helmetShining with crested plume, the arms of Pyrrhus.My father, too, has gifts; horses and guidesAre added, and sailing-men, and arms for my comrades.Anchises bade the fleet prepare; the windWas rising, why delay? But HelenusSpoke to Anchises, in compliment and honor:—‘Anchises, worthy of Venus’ couch, and the blessingOf other gods, twice saved from Trojan ruins,Yonder behold Ausonia! Near, and far,It lies, Apollo’s offering; sail westward.Farewell, made blest by a son’s goodness. IAm a nuisance with my talking.’
And his queen,Sad at the final parting, was bringing gifts,Robes woven with a golden thread, a TrojanScarf for Ascanius, all courteous honorGiven with these:—‘Take them, my child; these areThe work of my own hands, memorialsOf Hector’s wife Andromache, and her love.Receive these farewell gifts; they are for oneWho brings my own son back to me; your hands,Your face, your eyes, remind me of him so,—He would be just your age.’
I, also, wept,As I spoke my words of parting: ‘Now farewell;Your lot is finished, and your rest is won,No ocean fields to plough, no fleeing fieldsTo follow, you have your Xanthus and your Troy,Built by your hands, and blest by happier omens,Far from the path of the Greeks. But we are calledFrom fate to fate; if ever I enter TiberAnd Tiber’s neighboring lands, if ever I seeThe walls vouchsafed my people, I pray these shores,Italy and Epirus, shall be one,The life of Troy restored, with friendly townsAnd allied people. A common origin,A common fall, was ours. Let us remember,And our children keep the faith.’
Over the sea we rode, the shortest runTo Italy, past the Ceraunian rocks.The sun went down; the hills were dark with shadow.The oars assigned, we drew in to the landFor a little welcome rest; sleep overcame us,But it was not yet midnight when our pilotSprang from his blanket, studying the winds,Alert and listening, noting the starsWheeling the silent heaven, the twin Oxen,Arcturus and the rainy Kids. All calm,He saw, and roused us; camp was broken; the sailSpread to the rushing breeze, and as day reddenedAnd the stars faded, we saw a coast, low-lying,And made out hills. ‘Italy!’, cried Achates,‘Italy!’ all the happy sailors shouted.Anchises wreathed a royal wine-bowl, stoodOn the high stern, calling:—‘Gods of earth and oceanAnd wind and storm, help us along, propitiousWith favoring breath!’ And the breeze sprang up, and freshened;We saw a harbor open, and a templeShone on Minerva’s headland. The sails came down,We headed toward the land. Like the curve of a bowThe port turned in from the Eastern waves; its cliffsFoamed with the salty spray, and towering rocksCame down to the sea, on both sides, double walls,And the temple fled the shore. Here, our first omen,I saw four horses grazing, white as snow,And father Anchises cried:—‘It is war you bring us,Welcoming land, horses are armed for war,It is war these herds portend. But there is hopeOf peace as well. Horses will bend to the yokeAnd bear the bridle tamely.’ Then we worshippedThe holy power of Pallas, first to hear us,Kept our heads veiled before the solemn altar,And following Helenus’ injunction, offeredOur deepest prayer to Juno.
And sailed on,With some misgiving, past the homes of Greeks;Saw, next, a bay, Tarentum, and a townThat rumor said was Hercules’; against it,The towers of Caulon rose, and Scylaceum,Most dangerous to ships, and a temple of Juno.Far off, Sicilian Etna rose from the waves,And we heard the loud sea roar, and the rocks resounding,And voices broken on the coast; the shoalsLeaped at us, and the tide boiled sand. My fatherCried in alarm:—‘This must be that CharybdisHelenus warned us of. Rise to the oars,O comrades, pull from the danger!’ They respondedAs they did, always, Palinurus swingingThe prow to the waves on the left, and all our effortStrained to the left, with oars and sail. One momentWe were in the clouds, the next in the gulf of Hell;Three times the hollow rocks and reefs roared at us,Three times we saw spray shower the very stars,And the wind went down at sunset; we were weary,Drifting, in ignorance, to the Cyclops shores.
There is a harbor, safe enough from wind,But Etna thunders near it, crashing and roaring,Throwing black clouds up to the sky, and smokingWith swirling pitchy color, and white-hot ashes,With balls of flame puffed to the stars, and boulders,The mountain’s guts, belched out, or molten rockBoiling below the ground, roaring above it.The story goes that Enceladus, a giant,Struck by a bolt of lightning, lies here buriedBeneath all Etna’s weight, with the flames pouringThrough the broken furnace-flues; he shifts his body,Every so often, to rest his weariness,And then all Sicily seems to moan and trembleAnd fill the sky with smoke. We spent the night here,Hiding in woods, enduring monstrous portents,Unable to learn the cause. There were no stars,No light or fire in the sky; the dead of the night,The thick of the cloud, obscured the moon.
And dayArrived, at last, and the shadows left the heaven,And a man came out of the woods, a sorry figure,In hunger’s final stages, reaching toward usHis outstretched hands. We looked again. His beardUnshorn, his rags pinned up with thorns, and dirty,He was, beyond all doubt of it, a Greek,And one of those who had been at Troy in the fighting.He saw, far off, the Trojan dress and armor,Stopped short, for a moment, almost started backIn panic, then, with a wild rush, came on,Pleading and crying:—‘By the stars I beg you,By the gods above, the air we breathe, ah Trojans,Take me away from here, carry me offTo any land whatever; that will be plenty.I know I am one of the Greeks, I know I sailedWith them, I warred against the gods of Ilium,I admit all that; drown me for evil-doing,Cut me to pieces, scatter me over the waves.Kill me. If I must die, it will be a pleasureTo perish at the hands of men.’ He heldOur knees and clung there, grovelling before us.We urged him tell his story, his race, his fortune.My father gave him his hand, a pledge of safety,And his fear died down a little.
‘I come,’ he said,‘From Ithaca, a companion of Ulysses;My name is Achaemenides; my father,His name was Adamastus, was a poor man,And that was why I came to Troy. My comradesLeft me behind here, in their terrible hurry,To leave these cruel thresholds. The Cyclops live hereIn a dark cave, a house of gore, and banquetsSoaking with blood. It is dark inside there, monstrous.He hits the stars with his head—Dear gods, abolishThis creature from the world!—he is not easyTo look at; he is terrible to talk to.His food is the flesh of men, his drink their blood.I saw him once myself, with two of our menIn that huge fist of his; he lay on his backIn the midst of the cave, and smashed them on a rock,And the whole place swam with blood; I watched him chew themThe limbs with black clots dripping, the muscles, warm,Quivering as he bit them. But we got him!Ulysses did not stand for this; he keptHis wits about him, never mind the danger.The giant was gorged with food, and drunk, and lollingWith sagging neck, sprawling all over the cavernBelching and drooling blood-clots, bits of flesh,And wine all mixed together. And we stoodAround him, praying, and drew lots,—we had found a stakeAnd sharpened it at the end,—and so we boredHis big eye out; it glowered under his foreheadThe size of a shield, or a sun. So we got vengeanceFor the souls of our companions. But flee, I tell you,Get out of here, poor wretches, cut the cables,Forsake this shore. There are a hundred othersAs big as he is, and just like him, keepingSheep in the caves of the rocks, a hundred othersWander around this coast and these high mountains.I have managed for three months, hiding in forests,In the caves of beasts, on a rocky look-out, watchingThe Cyclops, horribly frightened at their criesAnd the tramp of their feet. I have lived on plants and berries,Gnawed roots and bark. I saw this fleet come in,And I did not care; whatever it was, I gladlyGave myself up. At least, I have escaped them.Whatever death you give is more than welcome.’And as he finished, we saw that very giant,The shepherd Polyphemus, looming hugeOver his tiny flock; he was trying to findHis way to the shore he knew, a shapeless monster,Lumbering, clumping, blind in the dark, with a stumble,And the step held up with trunk of a pine. No comfortFor him, except in the sheep. He reached the sand,Wading into the sea, and scooped up waterTo wash the ooze of blood from the socket’s hollow,Grinding his teeth against the pain, and roaring,And striding into the water, but even soThe waves were hardly up to his sides. We fledTaking on board our Greek; we cut the cable,Strained every nerve at the oars. He heard, and struggledToward the splash of the wave, but of course he could not catch us,And then he howled in a rage, and the sea was frightened,Italy deeply shaken, and all EtnaRumbled in echoing terror in her caverns.Out of the woods and the thicket of the mountainsThe Cyclops came, the others, toward the harbor,Along the coast-line. We could see them standingIn impotent anger, the wild eye-ball glaring,A grim assortment, brothers, tall as mountainsWhere oak and cypress tower, in the grovesOf Jove or great Diana. In our speedAnd terror, we sailed anywhere, forgettingWhat Helenus had said: Scylla, Charybdis,Were nothing to us then. But we rememberedIn time, and a north wind came from strait Pelorus,We passed Pantagia, and the harbor-mouthSet in the living-rock, Thapsus, low-lying,The bay called Megara: all these were placesThat Achaemenides knew well, recallingThe scenes of former wanderings with Ulysses.
An island faces the Sicanian bayAgainst Plemyrium, washed by waves; this islandHas an old name, Ortygia. The storyTells of a river, Alpheus, come from Elis,By a secret channel undersea, to joinThe Arethusan fountains, mingling hereWith the Sicilian waters. Here we worshippedThe land’s great gods; went on, to pass Helorus,A rich and marshy land; and then PachynusWhere the cliffs rose sharp and high; and Camerina,With firm foundation; the Geloan plains,And Gela, named for a river; then Acragas,A towering town, high-walled, and sometime famousFor its breed of horses; the city of palms, Selinus;The shoals of Lilybaeum, where the rocksAre a hidden danger; so at last we cameTo Drepanum, a harbor and a shorelineThat I could not rejoice in, a survivorOf all those storms of the sea. For here I lostMy comforter in all my care and trouble,My father Anchises. All the storms and perils,All of the weariness endured, seemed nothingCompared with this disaster; and I hadNo warning of it; neither Helenus,Though he foretold much trouble, nor Celaeno,That evil harpy, prophesied this sorrow.There was nothing more to bear; the long roads endedAt that unhappy goal; and when I left there,Some god or other brought me to your shores.’
And so he told the story, a lonely manTo eager listeners, destiny and voyage,And made an end of it here, ceased, and was quiet.