THEOSOPHY
AENEID
Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 – 1DL.
Publius
Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
The Aeneid
Virgil
Contents
BkI:1-11
Invocation to the Muse
BkI:50-80 Juno
Asks Aeolus for Help
BkI:81-123 Aeolus
Raises the Storm
BkI:124-156 Neptune
Intervenes
BkI:157-222
Shelter on the Libyan Coast
BkI:223-256 Venus
Intercedes with Jupiter
BkI:257-296
Jupiter’s Prophecy
BkI:297-371 Venus
Speaks to Aeneas
BkI:372-417 She
Directs Him to Dido’s Palace
BkI:418-463 The
Temple of Juno
BkI:494-519 The
Arrival of Queen Dido
BkI:520-560
Ilioneus Asks Her Assistance
BkI:561-585 Dido
Welcomes the Trojans
BkI:586-612
Aeneas Makes Himself Known
BkI:613-656 Dido
Receives Aeneas
BkI:657-694 Cupid
Impersonates Ascanius
BkI:695-722 Cupid
Deceives Dido
BkI:723-756 Dido
Asks for Aeneas’s Story
BkII:1-56 The
Trojan Horse: Laocoön’s Warning
BkII:145-194
Sinon Deludes the Trojans
BkII:195-227
Laocoön and the Serpents
BkII:228-253 The
Horse Enters Troy
BkII:254-297 The
Greeks Take the City
BkII:298-354
Aeneas Gathers his Comrades
BkII:355-401
Aeneas and his Friends Resist
BkII:402-437
Cassandra is Taken
BkII:438-485 The
Battle for the Palace
BkII:559-587
Aeneas Sees Helen
BkII:588-623
Aeneas is Visited by his Mother Venus.
BkII:624-670
Aeneas Finds his Family
BkII:705-729
Aeneas and his Family Leave Troy
BkII:730-795 The
Loss of Creusa
BkII:796-804
Aeneas Leaves Troy
BkIII:1-18 Aeneas
Sails to Thrace
BkIII:19-68 The
Grave of Polydorus
BkIII:69-120 The
Trojans Reach Delos
BkIII:121-171 The
Plague and a Vision
BkIII:172-208 The
Trojans Leave Crete for Italy
BkIII:278-293 The
Games at Actium
BkIII:294-355
Andromache in Chaonia
BkIII:356-462 The
Prophecy of Helenus
BkIII:463-505 The
Departure from Chaonia
BkIII:506-547 In
Sight of Italy
BkIII:548-587 The
Approach to Sicily
BkIII:692-718 The
Death of Anchises
BkIV:1-53 Dido
and Anna Discuss Aeneas
BkIV:129-172 The
Hunt and the Cave
BkIV:173-197
Rumour Reaches Iarbas
BkIV:198-218 Iarbas
Prays to Jupiter
BkIV:219-278
Jupiter Sends Mercury to Aeneas
BkIV:279-330 Dido
Accuses Aeneas
BkIV:331-361
Aeneas Justifies Himself
BkIV:450-503 Dido
Resolves to Die
BkIV:554-583
Mercury Visits Aeneas Again
BkIV:630-705 The
Death of Dido
BkV:1-41 Aeneas
Returns to Sicily
BkV:42-103 Aeneas
Declares the Games
BkV:104-150 The
Start of the Games
BkV:244-285 The
Prize-Giving for the Boat Race
BkV:362-484 The
Boxing Contest
BkV:485-544 The
Archery Contest
BkV:545-603 The
Exhibition of Horsemanship
BkV:604-663 Juno
sends Iris to Fire the Trojan Ships
BkV:664-699 The
Fleet is Saved
BkV:700-745
Nautes’ Advice and Anchises’ Ghost
BkV:746-778
Departure from Sicily
BkV:779-834 Venus
Seeks Neptune’s Help
BkV:835-871 The
Loss of Palinurus
BkVI:56-97 The Sibyl’s
Prophecy
BkVI:98-155
Aeneas Asks Entry to Hades
BkVI:156-182 The
Finding of Misenus’s Body
BkVI:236-263 The
Sacrifice to Hecate
BkVI:264-294 The
Entrance to Hades
BkVI:295-336 The
Shores of Acheron
BkVI:337-383 The
Shade of Palinurus
BkVI:384-416
Charon the Ferryman
BkVI:417-439
Beyond the Acheron
BkVI:440-476 The
Shade of Dido
BkVI:477-534 The
Shade of Deiphobus
BkVI:535-627 The
Sibyl Describes Tartarus
BkVI:628-678 The
Fields of Elysium
BkVI:679-702 The
Meeting with Anchises
BkVI:703-723 The
Souls Due for Re-birth
BkVI:724-751 The
Transmigration of Souls
BkVI:752-776 The
Future Race – The Alban Kings
BkVI:777-807 The
Future Race – Romulus and the Caesars.
BkVI:808-853 The
Future Race – Republic and Beyond
BkVI:854-885 The
Future Race – Marcellus
BkVI:886-901 The
Gates of Sleep
BkVII:1-36 The
Trojans Reach the Tiber
BkVII:37-106 King
Latinus and the Oracle
BkVII:107-147
Fulfilment of A Prophecy
BkVII:148-191 The
Palace of Latinus
BkVII:192-248 The
Trojans Seek Alliance With Latinus
BkVII:249-285
Latinus Offers Peace
BkVII:286-341
Juno Summons Allecto
BkVII:341-405
Allecto Maddens Queen Amata
BkVII:406-474
Allecto Rouses Turnus
BkVII:475-539
Allecto Among the Trojans
BkVII:540-571
Allecto Returns to Hades
BkVII:572-600
Latinus Abdicates
BkVII:601-640
Latium Prepares for War
BkVII:783-817
Turnus and Camilla Complete the Array.
BkVIII:1-25 The
Situation in Latium
BkVIII:26-65
Aeneas’s Dream of Tiberinus
BkVIII:66-101
Aeneas Sails to Pallanteum
BkVIII:102-151
Aeneas Meets Evander
BkVIII:152-183
Evander Offers Alliance
BkVIII:184-305
The Tale of Hercules and Cacus
BkVIII:306-369
Pallanteum – the Site of Rome
BkVIII:370-406
Venus Seeks Weapons from Vulcan
BkVIII:407-453
Vulcan’s Smithy
BkVIII:454-519
Evander Proposes Assistance
BkVIII:520-584
The Preliminary Alarms
BkVIII:585-625
Venus’s Gift of Armour
BkVIII:626-670
Vulcan’s Shield: Scenes of Early Rome.
BkVIII:671-713
Vulcan’s Shield: The Battle of Actium..
BkVIII:714-731 Vulcan’s
Shield: Augustus’s Triple Triumph
BkIX:1-24 Iris
Urges Turnus to War
BkIX:25-76 Turnus
Attacks the Trojan Fleet
BkIX:77-106
Cybele Makes a Plea to Jove
BkIX:107-122
Cybele Transforms the Ships
BkIX:123-167
Turnus Lays Siege to the Camp
BkIX:168-223
Nisus and Euryalus: A Mission Proposed
BkIX:224-313
Nisus and Euryalus: Aletes Consents
BkIX:314-366
Nisus and Euryalus: The Raid
BkIX:367-459 The
Death of Euryalus and Nisus
BkIX:460-524
Euryalus’s Mother Laments
BkIX:590-637
Ascanius (Iulus) in Battle
BkIX:638-671
Apollo Speaks to Iulus
BkIX:672-716
Turnus at the Trojan Gates
BkIX:717-755 The
Death of Pandarus
BkIX:756-787
Turnus Slaughters the Trojans
BkIX:788-818
Turnus Is Driven Off
BkX:1-95 The
Council of the Gods
BkX:96-117
Jupiter Leaves the Outcome to Fate
BkX:118-162
Aeneas Returns From Pallantium
BkX:163-214 The
Leaders of the Tuscan Fleet
BkX:215-259 The
Nymphs of Cybele
BkX:260-307
Aeneas Reaches Land
BkX:308-425 The
Pitched Battle
BkX:426-509 The
Death of Pallas
BkX:510-605
Aeneas Rages In Battle
BkX:606-688 Juno
Withdraws Turnus from the Fight
BkX:689-754
Mezentius Rages in Battle
BkX:755-832 The
Death of Mezentius’s Son, Lausus
BkX:833-908 The
Death of Mezentius
BkXI:1-99 Aeneas
Mourns Pallas
BkXI:100-138
Aeneas Offers Peace
BkXI:139-181
Evander Mourns Pallas
BkXI:182-224 The
Funeral Pyres
BkXI:225-295 An
Answer From Arpi
BkXI:296-335
Latinus’s Proposal
BkXI:336-375 Drances
Attacks Turnus Verbally
BkXI:445-531 The
Trojans Attack
BkXI:532-596
Diana’s Concern For Camilla
BkXI:597-647 The
Armies Engage
BkXI:648-724
Camilla In Action
BkXI:725-767
Arruns Follows Her
BkXI:768-835 The
Death of Camilla
BkXI:836-915 Opis
Takes Revenge
BkXII:1-53 Turnus
Demands Marriage
BkXII:54-80 He
Proposes Single Combat
BkXII:81-112 He
Prepares For Battle
BkXII:113-160
Juno Speaks to Juturna
BkXII:161-215
Aeneas and Latinus Sacrifice
BkXII:216-265 The
Rutulians Break The Treaty
BkXII:266-310
Renewed Fighting
BkXII:311-382
Aeneas Wounded: Turnus Rampant
BkXII:383-467
Venus Heals Aeneas
BkXII:468-499
Juturna Foils Aeneas
BkXII:500-553
Aeneas And Turnus Amongst The Slaughter
BkXII:554-592
Aeneas Attacks The City
BkXII:593-613
Queen Amata’s Suicide
BkXII:614-696
Turnus Hears Of Amata’s Death
BkXII:697-765 The
Final Duel Begins
BkXII:766-790 The
Goddesses Intervene
BkXII:791-842
Jupiter And Juno Decide The Future
BkXII:843-886
Jupiter Sends Juturna A Sign
BkXII:887-952 The
Death Of Turnus
BkI:1-11 Invocation to the Muse
I sing of arms and the man, he who, exiled by fate,
first came from the
coast of Troy to Italy, and to
Lavinian shores – hurled about endlessly by land and
sea,
by the will of the gods, by cruel Juno’s remorseless
anger,
long suffering also in war, until he founded a city
and brought his gods
to Latium: from that the Latin people
came, the lords of Alba
Longa, the walls of noble Rome.
Muse, tell me the cause: how was she offended in her
divinity,
how was she grieved, the Queen of Heaven, to drive a
man,
noted for virtue, to endure such dangers, to face so
many
trials? Can there be such anger in the minds of the
gods?
BkI:12-49 The Anger of Juno
There was an ancient city, Carthage (held by colonists
from Tyre),
opposite Italy, and the
far-off mouths of the Tiber,
rich in wealth, and
very savage in pursuit of war.
They say Juno loved this one land above all others,
even neglecting Samos:
here were her weapons
and her chariot, even
then the goddess worked at,
and cherished, the idea that it should have supremacy
over the nations, if only the fates allowed.
Yet she’d heard of offspring, derived from Trojan
blood,
that would one day overthrow the Tyrian stronghold:
that from them a people would come, wide-ruling,
and proud in war, to
Libya’s ruin: so the Fates ordained.
Fearing this, and remembering the ancient war
she had fought before,
at Troy, for her dear Argos,
(and the cause of her anger
and bitter sorrows
had not yet passed from her mind: the distant
judgement
of Paris stayed deep
in her heart, the injury to her scorned beauty,
her hatred of the
race, and abducted Ganymede’s honours)
the daughter of Saturn, incited further by this,
hurled the Trojans, the Greeks and pitiless Achilles
had left,
round the whole ocean,
keeping them far from Latium:
they wandered for many
years, driven by fate over all the seas.
Such an effort it was to found the Roman people.
They were hardly out of sight of Sicily’s isle, in
deeper water,
joyfully spreading sail, bronze keel ploughing the
brine,
when Juno, nursing the eternal wound in her breast,
spoke to herself: ‘Am I to abandon my purpose,
conquered,
unable to turn the Teucrian
king away from Italy!
Why, the fates forbid it. Wasn’t Pallas able to burn
the Argive fleet, to sink it in the sea, because of
the guilt
and madness of one
single man, Ajax, son of Oileus?
She herself hurled Jupiter’s swift fire from the
clouds,
scattered the ships, and made the sea boil with
storms:
She caught him up in a water-spout, as he breathed
flame
from his pierced chest, and pinned him to a sharp
rock:
yet I, who walk about as queen of the gods, wife
and sister of Jove, wage war on a whole race, for so
many years.
Indeed, will anyone worship Juno’s power from now on,
or place offerings, humbly, on her altars?’
BkI:50-80 Juno Asks Aeolus for Help
So debating with herself, her heart inflamed, the
goddess
came to Aeolia, to the
country of storms, the place
of wild gales. Here
in his vast cave, King Aeolus,
keeps the writhing winds, and the roaring tempests,
under control, curbs them with chains and
imprisonment.
They moan angrily at the doors, with a mountain’s vast
murmurs:
Aeolus sits, holding his sceptre, in his high
stronghold,
softening their passions, tempering their rage: if
not,
they’d surely carry off seas and lands and the highest
heavens,
with them, in rapid flight, and sweep them through the
air.
But the all-powerful Father, fearing this, hid them
in dark caves, and piled a high mountain mass over
them
and gave them a king, who by fixed agreement, would
know
how to give the order to tighten or slacken the reins.
Juno now offered these words to him, humbly:
‘Aeolus, since the Father of gods, and king of men,
gave you the power to quell, and raise, the waves with
the winds,
there is a people I hate
sailing the Tyrrhenian Sea,
bringing Troy’s conquered
gods to Italy:
Add power to the winds, and sink their wrecked boats,
or drive them apart, and scatter their bodies over the
sea.
I have fourteen Nymphs of outstanding beauty:
of whom I’ll name Deiopea, the loveliest in looks,
joined in eternal marriage, and yours for ever, so
that,
for such service to me as yours, she’ll spend all her
years
with you, and make you the father of lovely children.’
Aeolus replied: ‘Your task, O queen, is to decide
what you wish: my duty is to fulfil your orders.
You brought about all this kingdom of mine, the
sceptre,
Jove’s favour, you gave me a seat at the feasts of the
gods,
and you made me lord of the storms and the tempests.’
BkI:81-123 Aeolus Raises the Storm
When he had spoken, he reversed his trident and struck
the hollow mountain on the side: and the winds, formed
ranks,
rushed out by the door he’d made, and whirled across
the earth.
They settle on the sea, East and West wind,
and the wind from
Africa, together, thick with storms,
stir it all from its
furthest deeps, and roll vast waves to shore:
follows a cry of men and a creaking of cables.
Suddenly clouds take sky and day away
from the Trojan’s eyes: dark night rests on the sea.
It thunders from the pole, and the aether flashes
thick fire,
and all things threaten immediate death to men.
Instantly Aeneas groans, his limbs slack with cold:
stretching his two hands towards the heavens,
he cries out in this voice: ‘Oh, three, four times
fortunate
were those who chanced to die in front of their
father’s eyes
under Troy’s high walls!
O Diomede, son of Tydeus
bravest of Greeks! Why
could I not have fallen, at your hand,
in the fields of
Ilium, and poured out my spirit,
where fierce Hector
lies, beneath Achilles’s spear,
and mighty Sarpedon: where Simois rolls, and sweeps
away
so many shields, helmets, brave bodies, of men, in its
waves!’
Hurling these words out, a howling blast from the
north,
strikes square on the sail, and lifts the seas to
heaven:
the oars break: then the prow swings round and offers
the beam to the waves: a steep mountain of water
follows in a mass.
Some ships hang on the breaker’s crest: to others the
yawning deep
shows land between the waves: the surge rages with
sand.
The south wind catches three, and whirls them onto
hidden rocks
(rocks the Italians call the Altars, in mid-ocean,
a vast reef on the surface of the sea) three the east
wind drives
from the deep, to the shallows and quick-sands (a
pitiful sight),
dashes them against the bottom, covers them with a
gravel mound.
A huge wave, toppling, strikes one astern, in front of
his very eyes,
one carrying faithful
Orontes and the Lycians.
The steersman’s thrown out and hurled headlong, face
down:
but the sea turns the ship three times, driving her
round,
in place, and the swift vortex swallows her in the deep.
Swimmers appear here and there in the vast waste,
men’s weapons, planking, Trojan treasure in the waves.
Now the storm conquers Iloneus’s tough ship, now
Achates,
now that in which Abas sailed, and old Aletes’s:
their timbers sprung in their sides, all the ships
let in the hostile tide, and split open at the seams.
BkI:124-156 Neptune Intervenes
Neptune, meanwhile, greatly troubled, saw that the sea
was churned with vast murmur, and the storm was loose
and the still waters welled from their deepest levels:
he raised his calm face from the waves, gazing over
the deep.
He sees Aeneas’s fleet scattered all over the ocean,
the Trojans crushed by the breakers, and the
plummeting sky.
And Juno’s anger, and her stratagems, do not escape
her brother.
He calls the East and West winds to him, and then
says:
‘Does confidence in your birth fill you so? Winds, do
you dare,
without my intent, to mix earth with sky, and cause
such trouble,
now? You whom I – ! But it’s better to calm the
running waves:
you’ll answer to me later for this misfortune, with a
different punishment. Hurry, fly now, and say this to your king:
control of the ocean, and the fierce trident, were
given to me,
by lot, and not to him. He owns the wild rocks, home
to you,
and yours, East Wind: let Aeolus officiate in his
palace,
and be king in the closed prison of the winds.’
So he speaks, and swifter than his speech, he calms
the swollen sea,
scatters the gathered cloud, and brings back the sun.
Cymothoë and Triton, working together, thrust the
ships
from the sharp reef: Neptune himself raises them with
his trident,
parts the vast quicksand, tempers the flood,
and glides on weightless wheels, over the tops of the
waves.
As often, when rebellion breaks out in a great nation,
and the common rabble rage with passion, and soon
stones
and fiery torches fly (frenzy supplying weapons),
if they then see a man of great virtue, and weighty
service,
they are silent, and stand there listening
attentively:
he sways their passions with his words and soothes
their hearts:
so all the uproar of the ocean died, as soon as their
father,
gazing over the water, carried through the clear sky,
wheeled
his horses, and gave them their head, flying behind in
his chariot.
BkI:157-222 Shelter on the Libyan Coast
The weary followers of Aeneas made efforts to set a
course
for the nearest land, and tacked towards the Libyan
coast.
There is a place there in a deep inlet: an island
forms a harbour
with the barrier of its bulk, on which every wave from
the deep
breaks, and divides into diminishing ripples.
On this side and that, vast cliffs and twin crags loom
in the sky,
under whose summits the whole sea is calm, far and
wide:
then, above that, is a scene of glittering woods,
and a dark grove overhangs the water, with leafy
shade:
under the headland opposite is a cave, curtained with
rock,
inside it, fresh water, and seats of natural stone,
the home of Nymphs. No hawsers moor the weary ships
here, no anchor, with its hooked flukes, fastens them.
Aeneas takes shelter here with seven ships gathered
from the fleet, and the Trojans, with a passion for
dry land,
disembarking, take possession of the sands they longed
for,
and stretch their brine-caked bodies on the shore.
At once Achates strikes a spark from his flint,
catches the fire in the leaves, places dry fuel round
it,
and quickly has flames among the kindling.
Then, wearied by events, they take out wheat, damaged
by the sea, and implements of Ceres, and prepare to
parch
the grain over the flames, and grind it on stone.
Aeneas climbs a crag meanwhile, and searches the whole
prospect
far and wide over the sea, looking if he can see
anything
of Antheus and his storm-tossed Phrygian galleys,
or Capys, or Caicus’s arms blazoned on a high stern.
There’s no ship in sight: he sees three stags
wandering
on the shore: whole herds of deer follow at their
back,
and graze in long lines along the valley.
He halts at this, and grasps in his hand his bow
and swift arrows, shafts that loyal Achates carries,
and first he shoots the leaders themselves, their
heads,
with branching antlers, held high, then the mass, with
his shafts,
and drives the whole crowd in confusion among the
leaves:
The conqueror does not stop until he’s scattered seven
huge
carcasses on the ground, equal in number to his ships.
Then he seeks the harbour, and divides them among all
his friends.
Next he shares out the wine that the good Acestes had
stowed
in jars, on the Trinacrian coast, and that hero had
given them
on leaving: and speaking to them, calmed their sad
hearts:
‘O friends (well, we were not unknown to trouble
before)
O you who’ve endured worse, the god will grant an end
to this too.
You’ve faced rabid Scylla, and her deep-sounding
cliffs:
and you’ve experienced the Cyclopes’s rocks:
remember your courage and chase away gloomy fears:
perhaps one day you’ll even delight in remembering
this.
Through all these misfortunes, these dangerous times,
we head for Latium,
where the fates hold peaceful lives
for us: there Troy’s
kingdom can rise again. Endure,
and preserve
yourselves for happier days.’
So his voice utters, and sick with the weight of care,
he pretends
hope, in his look, and stifles the pain deep in his
heart.
They make ready the game, and the future feast:
they flay the hides from the ribs and lay the flesh
bare:
some cut it in pieces, quivering, and fix it on spits,
others place cauldrons on the beach, and feed them
with flames.
Then they revive their strength with food, stretched
on the grass,
and fill themselves with rich venison and old wine.
When hunger is quenched by the feast, and the remnants
cleared,
deep in conversation, they discuss their missing
friends,
and, between hope and fear, question whether they
live,
or whether they’ve suffered death and no longer hear
their name.
Aeneas, the virtuous, above all mourns the lot of
fierce Orontes,
then that of Amycus, together with Lycus’s cruel fate,
and those of brave Gyus, and brave Cloanthus.
BkI:223-256 Venus Intercedes with Jupiter
Now, all was complete, when Jupiter, from the heights
of the air,
looked down on the sea with its flying sails, and the
broad lands,
and the coasts, and the people far and wide, and
paused,
at the summit of heaven, and fixed his eyes on the
Libyan kingdom.
And as he weighed such cares as he had in his heart,
Venus spoke
to him, sadder still, her bright eyes brimming with
tears:
‘Oh you who rule things human, and divine, with
eternal law,
and who terrify them all with your lightning-bolt,
what can my Aeneas have done to you that’s so serious,
what have the Trojans done, who’ve suffered so much
destruction,
to whom the whole world’s closed, because of the
Italian lands?
Surely you promised that at some point, as the years
rolled by,
the Romans would rise from them, leaders would rise,
restored from Teucer’s blood, who would hold power
over the sea, and all the lands. Father, what thought
has changed
your mind? It consoled me for the fall of Troy, and
its sad ruin,
weighing one destiny, indeed, against opposing
destinies:
now the same misfortune follows these men driven on by
such
disasters. Great king, what end to their efforts will
you give?
Antenor could escape through the thick of the Greek
army,
and safely enter the Illyrian gulfs, and deep into the
realms
of the Liburnians, and pass the founts of Timavus,
from which the river bursts, with a huge mountainous
roar,
through nine mouths, and buries the fields under its
noisy flood.
Here, nonetheless, he sited the city of Padua, and
homes
for Teucrians, and gave the people a name, and hung up
the arms of Troy: now
he’s calmly settled, in tranquil peace.
But we, your race, to whom you permit the heights of
heaven,
lose our ships (shameful!), betrayed, because of one
person’s anger,
and kept far away from
the shores of Italy.
Is this the prize for virtue? Is this how you restore
our rule?
The father of men and gods, smiled at her with that
look
with which he clears the sky of storms,
kissed his daughter’s lips, and then said this:
BkI:257-296 Jupiter’s Prophecy
‘Don’t be afraid, Cytherea, your child’s fate remains
unaltered:
You’ll see the city of Lavinium, and the walls I
promised,
and you’ll raise great-hearted Aeneas high, to the
starry sky:
No thought has changed my mind. This son of yours
(since this trouble gnaws at my heart, I’ll speak,
and unroll the secret scroll of destiny)
will wage a mighty war
in Italy, destroy proud peoples,
and establish laws,
and city walls, for his warriors,
until a third summer
sees his reign in Latium, and
three winter camps pass
since the Rutulians were beaten.
But the boy Ascanius, surnamed Iulus now (He was Ilus
while the Ilian kingdom was a reality) will imperially
complete thirty great circles of the turning months,
and transfer his throne from its site at Lavinium,
and mighty in power,
will build the walls of Alba Longa.
Here kings of Hector’s race will reign now
for three hundred years complete, until a royal
priestess,
Ilia, heavy with child, shall bear Mars twins.
Then Romulus will further the race, proud in his nurse
the she-wolf’s tawny pelt, and found the walls of
Mars,
and call the people Romans, from his own name.
I’ve fixed no limits or duration to their possessions:
I’ve given them empire without end. Why, harsh Juno
who now torments land, and sea and sky with fear,
will respond to better judgement, and favour the
Romans,
masters of the world, and people of the toga, with me.
So it is decreed. A time will come, as the years glide
by,
when the Trojan house of Assaracus will force Phthia
into slavery, and be
lords of beaten Argos.
From this glorious source a Trojan Caesar will be
born,
who will bound the empire with Ocean, his fame with
the stars,
Augustus, a Julius, his name descended from the great
Iulus.
You, no longer anxious, will receive him one day in
heaven,
burdened with Eastern spoils: he’ll be called to in
prayer.
Then with wars abandoned, the harsh ages will grow
mild:
White haired Trust, and Vesta, Quirinus with his
brother Remus
will make the laws: the gates of War, grim with iron,
and narrowed by bars, will be closed: inside impious
Rage will roar
frighteningly from blood-stained mouth, seated on
savage weapons,
hands tied behind his back, with a hundred knots of
bronze.’
BkI:297-371 Venus Speaks to Aeneas
Saying this, he sends Mercury, Maia’s son, down from
heaven,
so that the country
and strongholds of this new Carthage
would open to the
Trojans, as guests, and Dido, unaware of fate,
would not keep them from her territory. He flies
through the air
with a beating of mighty wings and quickly lands on
Libyan shore.
And soon does as commanded, and the Phoenicians set
aside
their savage instincts, by the god’s will: the queen
above all
adopts calm feelings, and kind thoughts, towards the
Trojans.
But Aeneas, the virtuous, turning things over all
night,
decides, as soon as kindly dawn appears, to go out
and explore the place, to find what shores he has
reached,
on the wind, who owns them (since he sees desert)
man or beast, and bring back the details to his
friends.
He conceals the boats in over-hanging woods
under an arching cliff, enclosed by trees
and leafy shadows: accompanied only by Achetes,
he goes, swinging two broad-bladed spears in his hand.
His mother met him herself, among the trees, with the
face
and appearance of a virgin, and a virgin’s weapons,
a Spartan girl, or such as Harpalyce of Thrace,
who wearies horses, and outdoes winged Hebrus in
flight.
For she’d slung her bow from her shoulders, at the
ready,
like a huntress, and loosed her hair for the wind to
scatter,
her knees bare, and her flowing tunic gathered up in a
knot.
And she cried first: ‘Hello, you young men, tell me,
if you’ve seen my sister wandering here by any chance,
wearing a quiver, and the hide of a dappled lynx,
or shouting, hot on the track of a slavering boar?’
So Venus: and so Venus’s son began in answer:
‘I’ve not seen or heard any of your sisters, O Virgin
–
or how should I name you? Since your looks are not
mortal
and your voice is more than human: oh, a goddess for
certain!
Or Phoebus’s sister? Or one of the race of Nymphs?
Be kind, whoever you may be, and lighten our labour,
and tell us only what sky we’re under, and what shores
we’ve landed on: we’re adrift here, driven by wind and
vast seas,
knowing nothing of the people or the country:
many a sacrifice to you will fall at the altars, under
our hand.’
Then Venus said: ‘I don’t think myself worthy of such
honours:
it’s the custom of Tyrian girls to carry a quiver,
and lace our calves high up, over red hunting boots.
You see the kingdom of Carthage, Tyrians, Agenor’s
city:
but bordered by Libyans, a people formidable in war.
Dido rules this empire, having set out from Tyre,
fleeing her brother. It’s a long tale of wrong, with
many
windings: but I’ll trace the main chapters of the
story.
Sychaeus was her husband, wealthiest, in land, of
Phoenicians
and loved with a great love by the wretched girl,
whose father gave her as a virgin to him, and wed them
with great solemnity. But her brother Pygmalion,
savage
in wickedness beyond
all others, held the kingdom of Tyre.
Madness came between them. The king, blinded by greed
for gold,
killed the unwary Sychaeus, secretly, with a knife,
impiously,
in front of the altars, indifferent to his sister’s
affections.
He concealed his actions for a while, deceived the
lovesick girl,
with empty hopes, and many evil pretences.
But the ghost of her unburied husband came to her in
dream:
lifting his pale head in a strange manner, he laid
bare the cruelty
at the altars, and his heart pierced by the knife,
and unveiled all the secret wickedness of that house.
Then he urged her to leave quickly and abandon her
country,
and, to help her journey, revealed an ancient treasure
under the earth, an unknown weight of gold and silver.
Shaken by all this, Dido prepared her flight and her
friends.
Those who had fierce hatred of the tyrant or bitter
fear,
gathered together: they seized some ships that by
chance
were ready, and loaded the gold: greedy Pygmalion’s
riches
are carried overseas: a woman leads the enterprise.
The came to this place, and bought land, where you now
see
the vast walls, and
resurgent stronghold, of new Carthage,
as much as they could
enclose with the strips of hide
from a single bull, and from that they called it
Byrsa.
But who then are you? What shores do you come from?
What course do you take?’ He sighed as she questioned
him,
and drawing the words from deep in his heart he
replied:
BkI:372-417 She Directs Him to Dido’s Palace
‘O goddess, if I were to start my tale at the very
beginning,
and you had time to hear the story of our misfortunes,
Vesper would have shut day away in the closed heavens.
A storm drove us at whim to Libya’s shores,
sailing the many seas from
ancient Troy,
if by chance the name
of Troy has come to your hearing.
I am that Aeneas, the virtuous, who carries my
household gods
in my ship with me, having snatched them from the
enemy,
my name is known beyond the sky.
I seek my country Italy, and a people born of Jupiter
on high.
I embarked on the Phrygian sea with twenty ships,
following my given fate, my mother, a goddess, showing
the way:
barely seven are left, wrenched from the wind and
waves.
I myself wander, destitute and unknown, in the Libyan desert,
driven from Europe and
Asia.’ Venus did not wait
for further complaint
but broke in on his lament like this:
‘Whoever you are I don’t think you draw the breath of
life
while hated by the gods,
you who’ve reached a city of Tyre.
Only go on from here, and take yourself to the queen’s
threshold,
since I bring you news that your friends are restored,
and your ships recalled, driven to safety by the
shifting winds,
unless my parents taught me false prophecies, in vain.
See, those twelve swans in exultant line, that an
eagle,
Jupiter’s bird, swooping from the heavens,
was troubling in the clear sky: now, in a long file,
they seem
to have settled, or be gazing down now at those who
already have.
As, returning, their wings beat in play, and they
circle the zenith
in a crowd, and give their cry, so your ships and your
people
are in harbour, or near its entrance under full sail.
Only go on, turn your steps where the path takes you.’
She spoke, and turning away she reflected the light
from her rose-tinted neck, and breathed a divine
perfume
from her ambrosial hair: her robes trailed down to her
feet,
and, in her step, showed her a true goddess. He
recognised
his mother, and as she vanished followed her with his
voice:
‘You too are cruel, why do you taunt your son with
false
phantoms? Why am I not allowed to join hand
with hand, and speak and hear true words?’
So he accuses her, and turns his steps towards the
city.
But Venus veiled them with a dark mist as they walked,
and, as a goddess, spread a thick covering of cloud
around them,
so that no one could see them, or touch them,
or cause them delay, or ask them where they were
going.
She herself soars high in the air, to Paphos, and
returns to her home
with delight, where her temple and its hundred altars
steam with Sabean incense, fragrant with fresh
garlands.
BkI:418-463 The Temple of Juno
Meanwhile they’ve tackled the route the path revealed.
And soon they climbed the hill that looms high over
the city,
and looks down from above on the towers that face it.
Aeneas marvels at the mass of buildings, once huts,
marvels at the gates, the noise, the paved roads.
The eager Tyrians are busy, some building walls,
and raising the citadel, rolling up stones by hand,
some choosing the site for a house, and marking a
furrow:
they make magistrates and laws, and a sacred senate:
here some are digging a harbour: others lay down
the deep foundations of a theatre, and carve huge
columns
from the cliff, tall adornments for the future stage.
Just as bees in early summer carry out their tasks
among the flowery fields, in the sun, when they lead
out
the adolescent young of their race, or cram the cells
with liquid honey, and swell them with sweet nectar,
or receive the incoming burdens, or forming lines
drive the lazy herd of drones from their hives:
the work glows, and the fragrant honey’s sweet with
thyme.
‘O fortunate those whose walls already rise!’
Aeneas cries, and admires the summits of the city.
He enters among them, veiled in mist (marvellous to
tell)
and mingles with the people seen by no one.
There was a grove in the centre of the city, delightful
with shade, where the wave and storm-tossed
Phoenicians
first uncovered the head of a fierce horse, that regal
Juno
showed them: so the race would be noted in war,
and rich in substance throughout the ages.
Here Sidonian Dido was establishing a great temple
to Juno, rich with gifts and divine presence,
with bronze entrances rising from stairways, and beams
jointed with bronze, and hinges creaking on bronze
doors.
Here in the grove something new appeared that calmed
his fears
for the first time, here for the first time Aeneas
dared to hope
for safety, and to put greater trust in his afflicted
fortunes.
While, waiting for the queen, in the vast temple, he
looks
at each thing: while he marvels at the city’s wealth,
the skill of their artistry, and the products of their
labours,
he sees the battles
at Troy in their correct order,
the War, known through
its fame to the whole world,
the sons of Atreus, of Priam, and Achilles angered
with both.
He halted, and said, with tears: ‘What place is there,
Achates, what region of earth not full of our
hardships?
See, Priam! Here too virtue has its rewards, here too
there are tears for events, and mortal things touch
the heart.
Lose your fears: this fame will bring you benefit.’
BkI:464-493 The Frieze
So he speaks, and feeds his spirit with the
insubstantial frieze,
sighing often, and his face wet with the streaming
tears.
For he saw how, here, the Greeks fled, as they fought
round Troy,
chased by the Trojan youth, and, there, the Trojans
fled,
with plumed Achilles pressing them close in his
chariot.
Not far away, through his tears, he recognises
Rhesus’s
white-canvassed tents, that blood-stained Diomede,
Tydeus’s son,
laid waste with great slaughter, betrayed in their
first sleep,
diverting the fiery horses to his camp, before they
could eat
Trojan fodder, or drink from the river Xanthus.
Elsewhere Troilus, his weapons discarded in flight,
unhappy boy, unequally matched in his battle with
Achilles,
is dragged by his horses, clinging face-up to the
empty chariot,
still clutching the reins: his neck and hair trailing
on the ground, and his spear reversed furrowing the
dust.
Meanwhile the Trojan women with loose hair, walked
to unjust Pallas’s temple carrying the sacred robe,
mourning humbly, and beating their breasts with their
hands.
The goddess was turned away, her eyes fixed on the
ground.
Three times had Achilles dragged Hector round the
walls of Troy,
and now was selling the lifeless corpse for gold.
Then Aeneas truly heaves a deep sigh, from the depths of
his heart,
as he views the spoils, the chariot, the very body of
his friend,
and Priam stretching out his unwarlike hands.
He recognised himself as well, fighting the Greek
princes,
and the Ethiopian ranks and black Memnon’s armour.
Raging Penthesilea leads the file of Amazons,
with crescent shields, and shines out among her
thousands,
her golden girdle fastened beneath her exposed
breasts,
a virgin warrior daring to fight with men.
BkI:494-519 The Arrival of Queen Dido
While these wonderful sights are viewed by Trojan
Aeneas,
while amazed he hangs there, rapt, with fixed gaze,
Queen Dido, of loveliest form, reached the temple,
with a great crowd of youths accompanying her.
Just as Diana leads her dancing throng on Eurotas’s
banks,
or along the ridges of Cynthus, and, following her,
a thousand mountain-nymphs gather on either side:
and she carries a quiver on her shoulder, and overtops
all the other goddesses as she walks: and delight
seizes her mother Latona’s silent heart:
such was Dido, so she carried herself, joyfully,
amongst them, furthering the work, and her rising
kingdom.
Then, fenced with weapons, and resting on a high
throne,
she took her seat, at the goddess’s doorway, under the
central vault.
She was giving out laws and statutes to the people,
and sharing
the workers labour out in fair proportions, or
assigning it by lot:
when Aeneas suddenly saw Antheus, and Sergestus,
and brave Cloanthus, approaching, among a large crowd,
with others of the Trojans whom the black storm-clouds
had scattered over the sea and carried far off to
other shores.
He was stunned, and Achates was stunned as well
with joy and fear: they burned with eagerness to clasp
hands,
but the unexpected event confused their minds.
They stay concealed and, veiled in the deep mist, they
watch
to see what happens to their friends, what shore they
have left
the fleet on, and why they are here: the elect of
every ship came
begging favour, and made for the temple among the
shouting.
BkI:520-560 Ilioneus Asks Her Assistance
When they’d entered, and freedom to speak in person
had been granted, Ilioneus, the eldest, began calmly:
‘O queen, whom Jupiter grants the right to found
a new city, and curb proud tribes with your justice,
we unlucky Trojans, driven by the winds over every
sea,
pray to you: keep the terror of fire away from our
ships,
spare a virtuous race and look more kindly on our
fate.
We have not come to despoil Libyan homes with the
sword,
or to carry off stolen plunder to the shore: that
violence
is not in our minds, the conquered have not such
pride.
There’s a place called Hesperia by the Greeks,
an ancient land, strong in men, with a rich soil:
There the Oenotrians lived: now rumour has it
that a later people has
called it Italy, after their leader.
We had set our course there when stormy Orion,
rising with the tide, carried us onto hidden shoals,
and fierce winds scattered us far, with the
overwhelming surge,
over the waves among uninhabitable rocks:
we few have drifted here to your shores.
What race of men is this? What land is so barbaric as
to allow
this custom, that we’re denied the hospitality of the
sands?
They stir up war, and prevent us setting foot on dry
land.
If you despise the human race and mortal weapons,
still trust that the gods remember right and wrong.
Aeneas was our king, no one more just than him
in his duty, or greater in war and weaponry.
If fate still protects the man, if he still enjoys the
ethereal air,
if he doesn’t yet rest among the cruel shades, there’s
nothing
to fear, and you’d not repent of vying with him first
in kindness.
Then there are cities and fields too in the region of
Sicily,
and famous Acestes, of Trojan blood. Allow us
to beach our fleet, damaged by the storms,
and cut planks from trees, and shape oars,
so if our king’s restored and our friends are found
we can head for
Italy, gladly seek Italy and Latium:
and if our saviour’s
lost, and the Libyan seas hold you,
Troy’s most virtuous father, if no hope now remains
from Iulus,
let us seek the Sicilian straits, from which we were
driven,
and the home prepared for us, and a king, Acestes.’
So Ilioneus spoke: and the Trojans all shouted with
one voice.
BkI:561-585 Dido Welcomes the Trojans
Then, Dido, spoke briefly, with lowered eyes:
‘Trojans, free your hearts of fear: dispel your cares.
Harsh events and the newness of the kingdom force me
to effect
such things, and protect my borders with guards on all
sides.
Who doesn’t know of Aeneas’s race, and the city of Troy,
the bravery, the men,
or so great a blaze of warfare,
indeed, we Phoenicians don’t possess unfeeling hearts,
the sun doesn’t harness his horses that far from this
Tyrian city.
Whether you opt for mighty Hesperia, and Saturn’s
fields,
or the summit of Eryx, and Acestes for king,
I’ll see you safely escorted, and help you with my
wealth.
Or do you wish to settle here with me, as equals in my
kingdom?
The city I build is yours: beach your ships:
Trojans and Tyrians will be treated by me without
distinction.
I wish your king Aeneas himself were here, driven
by that same storm! Indeed, I’ll send reliable men
along the coast, and order them to travel the length
of Libya,
in case he’s driven aground, and wandering the woods
and towns.’
Brave Achetes, and our forefather Aeneas, their spirits
raised
by these words, had been burning to break free of the
mist.
Achates was first to speak, saying to Aeneas: ‘Son of
the goddess,
what intention springs to your mind? You see all’s
safe,
the fleet and our friends have been restored to us.
Only one is missing, whom we saw plunged in the waves:
all else is in accord with your mother’s words.’
BkI:586-612 Aeneas Makes Himself Known
He’d scarcely spoken when the mist surrounding them
suddenly parted, and vanished in the clear air.
Aeneas stood there, shining in the bright daylight,
like a god in shoulders and face: since his mother
had herself imparted to her son beauty to his hair,
a glow of youth, and a joyful charm to his eyes:
like the glory art can give to ivory, or as when silver,
or Parian marble, is surrounded by gold.
Then he addressed the queen, suddenly, surprising them
all,
saying: ‘I am here in person, Aeneas the Trojan,
him whom you seek, saved from the Libyan waves.
O Dido, it is not in our power, nor those of our Trojan
race,
wherever they may be, scattered through the wide
world,
to pay you sufficient thanks, you who alone have
pitied
Troy’s unspeakable miseries, and share your city and
home
with us, the remnant left by the Greeks, wearied
by every mischance, on land and sea, and lacking
everything.
May the gods, and the mind itself conscious of right,
bring you a just reward, if the gods respect the
virtuous,
if there is justice anywhere. What happy age gave
birth
to you? What parents produced such a child?
Your honour, name and praise will endure forever,
whatever lands may summon me, while rivers run
to the sea, while shadows cross mountain slopes,
while the sky nourishes the stars.’ So saying he
grasps
his friend Iloneus by the right hand, Serestus with
the left,
then others, brave Gyus and brave Cloanthus.
BkI:613-656 Dido Receives Aeneas
Sidonian Dido was first amazed at the hero’s looks
then at his great misfortunes, and she spoke, saying:
‘Son of a goddess, what fate pursues you through all
these dangers? What force drives you to these
barbarous shores?
Are you truly that Aeneas whom kindly Venus bore
to Trojan Anchises, by the waters of Phrygian Simois?
Indeed, I myself remember Teucer coming to Sidon,
exiled from his country’s borders, seeking a new
kingdom
with Belus’s help: Belus, my father, was laying waste
rich Cyprus, and, as victor, held it by his authority.
Since then the fall of the Trojan city is known to me,
and your name, and those of the Greek kings.
Even their enemy granted the Teucrians high praise,
maintaining they were born of the ancient Teucrian
stock.
So come, young lords, and enter our palace.
Fortune, pursuing me too, through many similar
troubles,
willed that I would find peace at last in this land.
Not being unknown to evil, I’ve learned to aid the
unhappy.’
So she speaks, and leads Aeneas into the royal house,
and proclaims, as well, offerings at the god’s
temples.
She sends no less than twenty bulls to his friends
on the shore, and a hundred of her largest pigs with
bristling backs, a hundred fat lambs with the ewes,
and joyful gifts of wine, but the interior of the
palace
is laid out with royal luxury, and they prepare
a feast in the centre of the palace: covers worked
skilfully in princely purple, massive silverware
on the tables, and her forefathers’ heroic deeds
engraved in gold, a long series of exploits traced
through many heroes, since the ancient origins of her
people.
Aeneas quickly sends Achates to the ships
to carry the news to Ascanius (since a father’s love
won’t let his mind rest) and bring him to the city:
on Ascanius all the care of a fond parent is fixed.
He commands him to bring gifts too, snatched
from the ruins of Troy, a figured robe stiff with gold,
and a cloak fringed with yellow acanthus,
worn by Helen of Argos, brought from Mycenae
when she sailed to Troy and her unlawful marriage,
a wonderful gift from her mother Leda:
and the sceptre that Ilione, Priam’s eldest daughter,
once carried, and a necklace of pearls, and a
double-coronet
of jewels and gold. Achates, hastening to fulfil
these commands, took his way towards the ships.
BkI:657-694 Cupid Impersonates Ascanius
But Venus was planning new wiles and stratagems
in her heart: how Cupid, altered in looks, might
arrive
in place of sweet Ascanius, and arouse the passionate
queen
by his gifts, and entwine the fire in her bones: truly
she fears
the unreliability of this house, and the duplicitous
Tyrians:
unyielding Juno angers her, and her worries increase
with nightfall.
So she speaks these words to winged Cupid:
‘My son, you who alone are my great strength, my
power,
a son who scorns mighty Jupiter’s Typhoean
thunderbolts,
I ask your help, and humbly call on your divine will.
It’s known to you how Aeneas, your brother, is driven
over the sea, round all the shores, by bitter Juno’s
hatred,
and you have often grieved with my grief.
Phoenician Dido holds him there, delaying him with
flattery,
and I fear what may come of Juno’s hospitality:
at such a critical turn of events she’ll not be idle.
So I intend to deceive the queen with guile, and
encircle
her with passion, so that no divine will can rescue
her,
but she’ll be seized, with me, by deep love for
Aeneas.
Now listen to my thoughts on how you can achieve this.
Summoned by his dear father, the royal child,
my greatest concern, prepares to go to the Sidonian
city,
carrying gifts that survived the sea, and the flames
of Troy.
I’ll lull him to sleep and hide him in my sacred
shrine
on the heights of Cythera or Idalium, so he can know
nothing of my deceptions, or interrupt them mid-way.
For no more than a single night imitate his looks by
art,
and, a boy yourself, take on the known face of a boy,
so that when Dido takes you to her breast, joyfully,
amongst the royal feast, and the flowing wine,
when she embraces you, and plants sweet kisses on you,
you’ll breathe hidden fire into her, deceive her with
your poison.’
Cupid obeys his dear mother’s words, sets aside his
wings,
and laughingly trips along with Iulus’s step.
But Venus pours gentle sleep over Ascanius’s limbs,
and warming him in her breast, carries him, with
divine power,
to Idalia’s high groves, where soft marjoram smothers
him
in flowers, and the breath of its sweet shade.
BkI:695-722 Cupid Deceives Dido
Now, obedient to her orders, delighting in Achetes as
guide,
Cupid goes off carrying royal gifts for the Tyrians.
When he arrives the queen has already settled herself
in the centre, on her golden couch under royal
canopies.
Now our forefather Aeneas and the youth of Troy
gather there, and recline on cloths of purple.
Servants pour water over their hands: serve bread
from baskets: and bring napkins of smooth cloth.
Inside there are fifty female servants, in a long
line,
whose task it is to prepare the meal, and tend the
hearth fires:
a hundred more, and as many pages of like age,
to load the tables with food, and fill the cups.
And the Tyrians too are gathered in crowds through the
festive
halls, summoned to recline on the embroidered couches.
They marvel at Aeneas’s gifts, marvel at Iulus,
the god’s brilliant appearance, and deceptive words,
at the robe, and the cloak embroidered with yellow
acanthus.
The unfortunate Phoenician above all, doomed to future
ruin,
cannot pacify her feelings, and catches fire with
gazing,
stirred equally by the child and by the gifts.
He, having hung in an embrace round Aeneas’s neck,
and sated the deceived father’s great love,
seeks out the queen. Dido, clings to him with her eyes
and with her heart, taking him now and then on her
lap,
unaware how great a god is entering her, to her
sorrow.
But he, remembering his Cyprian mother’s wishes,
begins gradually to erase all thought of Sychaeus,
and works at seducing her mind, so long unstirred,
and her heart unused to love, with living passion.
BkI:723-756 Dido Asks for Aeneas’s Story
At the first lull in the feasting, the tables were
cleared,
and they set out vast bowls, and wreathed the wine
with garlands.
Noise filled the palace, and voices rolled out across
the wide halls:
bright lamps hung from the golden ceilings,
and blazing candles dispelled the night.
Then the queen asked for a drinking-cup, heavy
with gold and jewels, that Belus and all Belus’s line
were accustomed to use, and filled it
with wine. Then the halls were silent. She spoke:
‘Jupiter, since they say you’re the one who creates
the laws of hospitality, let this be a happy day
for the Tyrians and those from Troy,
and let it be remembered by our children.
Let Bacchus, the joy-bringer, and kind Juno be
present,
and you, O Phoenicians, make this gathering festive.’
She spoke and poured an offering of wine onto the
table,
and after the libation was the first to touch the bowl
to her lips,
then she gave it to Bitias, challenging him: he
briskly drained
the brimming cup, drenching himself in its golden
fullness,
then other princes drank. Iolas, the long-haired, made
his golden lyre resound, he whom great Atlas taught.
He sang of the wandering moon and the sun’s labours,
where men and beasts came from, and rain and fire,
of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, the two Bears:
why the winter suns rush to dip themselves in the sea,
and what delay makes the slow nights linger.
The Tyrians redoubled their applause, the Trojans too.
And unfortunate Dido, she too spent the night
in conversation, and drank deep of her passion,
asking endlessly about Priam and Hector:
now about the armour that Memnon, son of the Dawn,
came with to Troy, what kind were Diomed’s horses,
how great was Achilles. ‘But come, my guest, tell us
from the start all the Greek trickery, your men’s
mishaps,
and your wanderings: since it’s the seventh summer now
that brings you here, in your journey, over every land
and sea.’
BkII:1-56
The Trojan Horse: Laocoön’s Warning
They were all silent, and turned their faces towards
him intently.
Then from his high couch our forefather Aeneas began:
‘O queen, you command me to renew unspeakable grief,
how the Greeks destroyed the riches of Troy,
and the sorrowful kingdom, miseries I saw myself,
and in which I played a great part. What Myrmidon,
or Dolopian, or warrior of fierce Ulysses, could keep
from tears in telling such a story? Now the dew-filled
night
is dropping from the sky, and the setting stars urge
sleep.
But if you have such desire to learn of our
misfortunes,
and briefly hear of Troy’s last agonies, though my
mind
shudders at the memory, and recoils in sorrow, I’ll
begin.
‘After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the
Greeks,
opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war,
build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas’s
divine art,
and weave planks of fir over its ribs:
they pretend it’s a votive offering: this rumour
spreads.
They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by
lot,
there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the
huge
cavernous insides with armed warriors.
Tenedos is within sight, an island known to fame,
rich in wealth when Priam’s kingdom remained,
now just a bay and an unsafe anchorage for boats:
they sail there, and hide themselves, on the lonely
shore.
We thought they had gone, and were seeking Mycenae
with the wind. So all the Trojan land was free of its
long sorrow.
The gates were opened: it was a joy to go and see the
Greek camp,
the deserted site and the abandoned shore.
Here the Dolopians stayed, here cruel Achilles,
here lay the fleet, here they used to meet us in
battle.
Some were amazed at virgin Minerva’s fatal gift,
and marvel at the horse’s size: and at first
Thymoetes,
whether through treachery, or because Troy’s fate was
certain,
urged that it be dragged inside the walls and placed
on the citadel.
But Capys, and those of wiser judgement, commanded us
to either hurl this deceit of the Greeks, this suspect
gift,
into the sea, or set fire to it from beneath,
or pierce its hollow belly, and probe for hiding
places.
The crowd, uncertain, was split by opposing opinions.
Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights
of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd
with him,
and shouts from far off: ‘O unhappy citizens, what
madness?
Do you think the enemy’s sailed away? Or do you think
any Greek gift’s free of treachery? Is that Ulysses’s
reputation?
Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the
wood,
or it’s been built as a machine to use against our
walls,
or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above,
or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don’t trust
this horse.
Whatever it is, I’m afraid of Greeks even those
bearing gifts.’
So saying he hurled his great spear, with extreme
force,
at the creature’s side, and into the frame of the
curved belly.
The spear stuck quivering, and at the womb’s
reverberation
the cavity rang hollow and gave out a groan.
And if the gods’ fate, if our minds, had not been
ill-omened,
he’d have incited us to mar the Greeks hiding-place
with steel:
Troy would still stand: and you, high tower of Priam
would remain.
BkII:57-144
Sinon’s Tale
See, meanwhile, some Trojan shepherds, shouting
loudly,
dragging a youth, his hands tied behind his back, to
the king.
In order to contrive this, and lay Troy open to the
Greeks,
he had placed himself in their path, calm in mind, and
ready
for either course: to engage in deception, or find
certain death.
The Trojan youth run, crowding round, from all sides,
to see him, and compete in mocking the captive.
Listen now to Greek treachery, and learn of all their
crimes
from just this one. Since, as he stood, looking
troubled,
unarmed, amongst the gazing crowd,
and cast his eyes around the Phrygian ranks,
he said: ‘Ah! What land, what seas would accept me
now?
What’s left for me at the last in my misery, I who
have
no place among the Greeks, when the hostile Trojans,
themselves, demand my punishment and my blood?
At this the mood changed and all violence was checked.
We urged him to say what blood he was sprung from,
and why he suffered: and tell us what trust could be
placed
in him as a captive. Setting fear aside at last he
speaks:
“O king, I’ll tell you the whole truth, whatever
happens,
and indeed I’ll not deny that I’m of Argive birth:
this first of all: if Fortune has made me wretched,
she’ll not also wrongly make me false and a liar.
If by any chance some mention of Palamedes’s name
has reached your ears, son of Belus, and talk
of his glorious fame, he whom the Pelasgians,
on false charges of treason, by atrocious perjury,
because he opposed the war, sent innocent to his
death,
and who they mourn, now he’s taken from the light:
well my father, being poor, sent me here to the war
when I was young, as his friend, as we were blood
relatives.
While Palamades was safe in power, and prospered
in the kings’ council, I also had some name and
respect.
But when he passed from this world above, through
the jealousy of plausible Ulysses (the tale’s not
unknown)
I was ruined, and spent my life in obscurity and
grief,
inwardly angry at the fate of my innocent friend.
Maddened I could not be silent, and I promised, if
chance allowed,
and if I ever returned
as a victor to my native Argos,
to avenge him, and
with my words stirred bitter hatred.
The first hint of trouble came to me from this,
because of it
Ulysses was always frightening me with new
accusations,
spreading veiled rumours among the people, and
guiltily
seeking to defend himself. He would not rest till,
with Calchas
as his instrument – but why I do unfold this unwelcome
story?
Why hinder you? If you consider all Greeks the same,
and that’s sufficient, take your vengeance now: that’s
what
the Ithacan wants, and the sons of Atreus would pay
dearly for.”
Then indeed we were on fire to ask, and seek the
cause,
ignorant of such wickedness and Pelasgian trickery.
Trembling with fictitious feelings he continued,
saying:
“The Greeks, weary with the long war, often longed
to leave Troy and
execute a retreat: if only they had!
Often a fierce storm from the sea land-locked them,
and the gale terrified them from leaving:
once that horse, made of maple-beams, stood there,
especially then, storm-clouds thundered in the
sky.
Anxious, we send Eurypylus to consult Phoebus’s
oracle,
and he brings back these dark words from the
sanctuary:
‘With blood, and a virgin sacrifice, you calmed the
winds,
O Greeks, when you first came to these Trojan shores,
seek your
return in blood, and the well-omened sacrifice of an
Argive life.’
When this reached the ears of the crowd, their minds
were stunned,
and an icy shudder ran to their deepest marrow:
who readies this fate, whom does Apollo choose?
At this the Ithacan thrust the seer, Calchas, into
their midst,
demanding to know what the god’s will might be,
among the uproar. Many were already cruelly
prophesying
that ingenious man’s wickedness towards me, and
silently saw
what was coming. For ten days the seer kept silence,
refusing
to reveal the secret by his words, or condemn anyone
to death.
But at last, urged on by Ulysses’s loud clamour, he
broke
into speech as agreed, and doomed me to the altar.
All acclaimed it, and what each feared himself, they
endured
when directed, alas, towards one man’s destruction.
Now the terrible day arrived, the rites were being
prepared
for me, the salted grain, and the headbands for my
forehead.
I confess I saved myself from death, burst my bonds,
and all that night hid by a muddy lake among the
reeds,
till they set sail, if as it happened they did.
And now I’ve no hope of seeing my old country again,
or my sweet children or the father I long for:
perhaps they’ll seek to punish them for my flight,
and avenge my crime through the death of these
unfortunates.
But I beg you, by the gods, by divine power that knows
the truth,
by whatever honour anywhere remains pure among men,
have pity
on such troubles, pity the soul that endures
undeserved suffering.”
BkII:145-194
Sinon Deludes the Trojans
With these tears we grant him his life, and also pity
him.
Priam himself is the first to order his manacles and
tight bonds
removed, and speaks these words of kindness to him:
“From now on, whoever you are, forget the Greeks, lost
to you:
you’ll be one of us. And explain to me truly what I
ask:
Why have they built this huge hulk of a horse? Who
created it?
What do they aim at? What religious object or war
machine is it?”
He spoke: the other, schooled in Pelasgian art and
trickery,
raised his unbound palms towards the stars, saying:
“You, eternal fires, in your invulnerable power, be
witness,
you altars and impious swords I escaped,
you sacrificial ribbons of the gods that I wore as
victim:
with right I break the Greek’s solemn oaths,
with right I hate them, and if things are hidden
bring them to light: I’m bound by no laws of their
country.
Only, Troy, maintain your assurances, if I speak
truth, if I repay
you handsomely: kept intact yourself, keep your
promises intact.
All the hopes of the Greeks and their confidence to
begin the war
always depended on Pallas’s aid. But from that moment
when the impious son of Tydeus, Diomede, and Ulysses
inventor of wickedness, approached the fateful
Palladium to snatch
it from its sacred temple, killing the guards on the
citadel’s heights,
and dared to seize the holy statue, and touch the
sacred ribbons
of the goddess with blood-soaked hands: from that
moment
the hopes of the Greeks receded, and slipping
backwards ebbed:
their power fragmented, and the mind of the goddess
opposed them.
Pallas gave sign of this, and not with dubious
portents,
for scarcely was the statue set up in camp, when
glittering flames
shone from the upturned eyes, a salt sweat ran over
its limbs,
and (wonderful to tell) she herself darted from the
ground
with shield on her arm, and spear quivering.
Calchas immediately proclaimed that the flight by sea
must be
attempted, and that Troy
cannot be uprooted by Argive weapons,
unless they renew the
omens at Argos, and take the goddess home,
whom they have indeed
taken by sea in their curved ships.
And now they are heading for their native Mycenae with
the wind,
obtaining weapons and the friendship of the gods,
re-crossing
the sea to arrive unexpectedly, So Calchas reads the
omens.
Warned by him, they’ve set up this statue of a horse
for the wounded goddess, instead of the Palladium,
to atone severely for their sin. And Calchas ordered
them
to raise the huge mass of woven timbers, raised to the
sky,
so the gates would not take it, nor could it be
dragged
inside the walls, or watch over the people in their
ancient rites.
Since if your hands violated Minerva’s gift,
then utter ruin (may the gods first turn that
prediction
on themselves!) would come to Priam and the Trojans:
yet if it ascended into your citadel, dragged by your
hands,
Asia would come to the very walls of Pelops, in mighty
war,
and a like fate would await our children.”
BkII:195-227
Laocoön and the Serpents
Through these tricks and the skill of perjured Sinon,
the thing was
credited, and we were trapped, by his wiliness, and
false tears,
we, who were not conquered by Diomede, or Larissan
Achilles,
nor by the ten years of war, nor those thousand ships.
Then something greater and more terrible befalls
us wretches, and stirs our unsuspecting souls.
Laocoön, chosen by lot as priest of Neptune,
was sacrificing a huge bull at the customary altar.
See, a pair of serpents with huge coils, snaking over
the sea
from Tenedos through the tranquil deep (I shudder to
tell it),
and heading for the shore side by side: their fronts
lift high
over the tide, and their blood-red crests top the
waves,
the rest of their body slides through the ocean
behind,
and their huge backs arch in voluminous folds.
There’s a roar from the foaming sea: now they reach
the shore,
and with burning eyes suffused with blood and fire,
lick at their hissing jaws with flickering tongues.
Blanching at the sight we scatter. They move
on a set course towards Laocoön: and first each serpent
entwines the slender bodies of his two sons,
and biting at them, devours their wretched limbs:
then as he comes to their aid, weapons in hand, they
seize him too,
and wreathe him in massive coils: now encircling his
waist twice,
twice winding their scaly folds around his throat,
their high necks and heads tower above him.
He strains to burst the knots with his hands,
his sacred headband drenched in blood and dark venom,
while he sends terrible shouts up to the heavens,
like the bellowing of a bull that has fled wounded,
from the altar, shaking the useless axe from its neck.
But the serpent pair escape, slithering away to the
high temple,
and seek the stronghold of fierce Pallas, to hide
there
under the goddess’s feet, and the circle of her
shield.
BkII:228-253
The Horse Enters Troy
Then in truth a strange terror steals through each
shuddering heart,
and they say that Laocoön has justly suffered for his
crime
in wounding the sacred oak-tree with his spear,
by hurling its wicked shaft into the trunk.
“Pull the statue to her house”, they shout,
“and offer prayers to the goddess’s divinity.”
We breached the wall, and opened up the defences of
the city.
All prepare themselves for the work and they set up
wheels
allowing movement under its feet, and stretch hemp
ropes
round its neck. That engine of fate mounts our walls
pregnant with armed men. Around it boys, and virgin
girls,
sing sacred songs, and delight in touching their hands
to the ropes:
Up it glides and rolls threateningly into the midst of
the city.
O my country, O Ilium house of the gods, and you,
Trojan walls famous in war! Four times it sticks at
the threshold
of the gates, and four times the weapons clash in its
belly:
yet we press on regardless, blind with frenzy,
and site the accursed creature on top of our sacred
citadel.
Even then Cassandra, who, by the god’s decree, is
never
to be believed by Trojans, reveals our future fate
with her lips.
We unfortunate ones, for whom that day is our last,
clothe the gods’ temples, throughout the city, with
festive branches.
Meanwhile the heavens turn, and night rushes from the
Ocean,
wrapping the earth, and sky, and the Myrmidons’
tricks,
in its vast shadow: through the city the Trojans
fall silent: sleep enfolds their weary limbs.
BkII:254-297
The Greeks Take the City
And now the Greek phalanx of battle-ready ships sailed
from Tenedos, in the benign stillness of the silent
moon,
seeking the known shore, when the royal galley raised
a torch, and Sinon, protected by the gods’ unjust
doom,
sets free the Greeks imprisoned by planks of pine,
in the horses’ belly. Opened, it releases them to the
air,
and sliding down a lowered rope, Thessandrus, and
Sthenelus,
the leaders, and fatal Ulysses, emerge joyfully
from their wooden cave, with Acamas, Thoas,
Peleus’s son Neoptolemus, the noble Machaon,
Menelaus, and Epeus who himself devised this trick.
They invade the city that’s drowned in sleep and wine,
kill the watchmen, welcome their comrades
at the open gates, and link their clandestine ranks.
It was the hour when first sleep begins for weary
mortals,
and steals over them as the sweetest gift of the gods.
See, in dream, before my eyes, Hector seemed to stand
there,
saddest of all and pouring out great tears,
torn by the chariot, as once he was, black with bloody
dust,
and his swollen feet pierced by the thongs.
Ah, how he looked! How changed he was
from that Hector who returned wearing Achilles’s
armour,
or who set Trojan flames to the Greek ships! His beard
was ragged,
his hair matted with blood, bearing those many wounds
he received
dragged around the walls of his city.
And I seemed to weep myself, calling out to him,
and speaking to him in words of sorrow:
“Oh light of the Troad, surest hope of the Trojans,
what has so delayed you? What shore do you come from
Hector, the long-awaited? Weary from the many troubles
of our people and our city I see you, oh, after the
death
of so many of your kin! What shameful events have
marred
that clear face? And why do I see these wounds?’
He does not reply, nor does he wait on my idle
questions,
but dragging heavy sighs from the depths of his heart,
he says:
“Ah! Son of the goddess, fly, tear yourself from the
flames.
The enemy has taken the walls: Troy falls from her
high place.
Enough has been given to Priam and your country: if
Pergama
could be saved by any hand, it would have been saved
by this.
Troy entrusts her sacred relics and household gods to
you:
take them as friends of your fate, seek mighty walls
for them,
those you will found at last when you have wandered
the seas.”
So he speaks, and brings the sacred headbands in his
hands
from the innermost shrine, potent Vesta, and the
undying flame.
BkII:298-354
Aeneas Gathers his Comrades
Meanwhile the city is confused with grief, on every
side,
and though my father Anchises’s house is remote,
secluded
and hidden by trees, the sounds grow clearer and
clearer,
and the terror of war sweeps upon it.
I shake off sleep, and climb to the highest roof-top,
and stand there with ears strained:
as when fire attacks a wheat-field when the south-wind
rages,
or the rushing torrent from a mountain stream covers
the fields,
drowns the ripe crops, the labour of oxen,
and brings down the trees headlong, and the dazed
shepherd,
unaware, hears the echo from a high rocky peak.
Now the truth is obvious, and the Greek plot revealed.
Now the vast hall of Deiphobus is given to ruin
the fire over it: now Ucalegon’s nearby blazes:
the wide Sigean straits throw back the glare.
Then the clamour of men and the blare of trumpets
rises.
Frantically I seize weapons: not because there is much
use
for weapons, but my spirit burns to gather men for
battle
and race to the citadel with my friends: madness and
anger
hurl my mind headlong, and I think it beautiful to die
fighting.
Now, see, Panthus escaping the Greek spears,
Panthus, son of Othrys, Apollo’s priest on the
citadel,
dragging along with his own hands the sacred relics,
the conquered gods, his little grandchild, running
frantically
to my door: “Where’s the best advantage, Panthus, what
position
should we take?” I’d barely spoken, when he answered
with a groan: “The last day comes, Troy’s inescapable
hour.
Troy is past, Ilium is past, and the great glory of
the Trojans:
Jupiter carries all to Argos: the Greeks are lords of
the burning city.
The horse, standing high on the ramparts, pours out
warriors,
and Sinon the conqueror exultantly stirs the flames.
Others are at the wide-open gates, as many thousands
as ever came from great Mycenae: more have blocked
the narrow streets with hostile weapons:
a line of standing steel with naked flickering blades
is ready for the slaughter: barely the first few
guards
at the gates attempt to fight, and they resist in
blind conflict.”
By these words from Othrys’ son, and divine will, I’m
thrust
amongst the weapons and the flames, where the dismal
Fury
sounds, and the roar, and the clamour rising to the
sky.
Friends joined me, visible in the moonlight, Ripheus,
and Epytus, mighty in battle, Hypanis and Dymas,
gathered to my side, and young Coroebus, Mygdon’s son:
by chance he’d arrived in Troy at that time,
burning with mad love for Cassandra, and brought help,
as a potential son-in-law, to Priam, and the Trojans,
unlucky man, who didn’t listen to the prophecy
of his frenzied bride! When I saw them crowded there
eager for battle, I began as follows: “Warriors,
bravest
of frustrated spirits, if your ardent desire is fixed
on following me to the end, you can see our cause’s
fate.
All the gods by whom this empire was supported
have departed, leaving behind their temples and their
altars:
you aid a burning city: let us die and rush into
battle.
The beaten have one refuge, to have no hope of
refuge.”
BkII:355-401
Aeneas and his Friends Resist
So their young spirits were roused to fury. Then, like
ravaging
wolves in a dark mist, driven blindly by the cruel
rage
of their bellies, leaving their young waiting with
thirsty jaws,
we pass through our enemies, to certain death, and
make our way
to the heart of the city: dark night envelops us in
deep shadow.
Who could tell of that destruction in words, or equal
our pain
with tears? The ancient city falls, she who ruled for
so many years:
crowds of dead bodies lie here and there in the streets,
among the houses, and on the sacred thresholds of the
gods.
Nor is it Trojans alone who pay the penalty with their
blood:
courage returns at times to the hearts of the defeated
and the Greek conquerors die. Cruel mourning is
everywhere,
everywhere there is panic, and many a form of death.
First, Androgeos, meets us, with a great crowd of
Greeks
around him, unknowingly thinking us allied troops,
and calls to us in friendly speech as well:
“Hurry, men! What sluggishness makes you delay so?
The others are raping and plundering burning Troy:
are you only now arriving from the tall ships?”
He spoke, and straight away (since no reply given was
credible enough) he knew he’d fallen into the enemy
fold.
He was stunned, drew back, and stifled his voice.
Like a man who unexpectedly treads on a snake in rough
briars,
as he strides over the ground, and shrinks back in
sudden fear
as it rears in anger and swells its dark-green neck,
so Androgeos, shuddering at the sight of us, drew
back.
We charge forward and surround them closely with
weapons,
and ignorant of the place, seized by terror, as they
are, we slaughter
them wholesale. Fortune favours our first efforts.
And at this Coroebus, exultant with courage and
success, cries:
“Oh my friends, where fortune first points out the
path to safety,
and shows herself a friend, let us follow. Let’s
change our shields
adopt Greek emblems. Courage or deceit: who’ll
question it in war?
They’ll arm us themselves.” With these words, he takes
up Androgeos’s plumed helmet, his shield with its noble markings,
and straps the Greek’s sword to his side. Ripheus does
likewise,
Dymas too, and all the warriors delight in it. Each man
arms himself with the fresh spoils. We pass on
mingling with the Greeks, with gods that are not our
known,
and clash, in many an armed encounter, in the blind
night,
and we send many a Greek down to Orcus.
Some scatter to the ships, and run for safer shores,
some, in humiliated terror, climb the vast horse again
and hide in the womb they know.
BkII:402-437
Cassandra is Taken
“Ah, put no faith in anything the will of the gods
opposes!
See, Priam’s virgin daughter dragged, with streaming
hair,
from the sanctuary and temple of Minerva,
lifting her burning eyes to heaven in vain:
her eyes, since cords restrained her gentle hands.
Coroebus could not stand the sight, maddened in mind,
and hurled himself among the ranks, seeking death.
We follow him, and, weapons locked, charge together.
Here, at first, we were overwhelmed by Trojan spears,
hurled from the high summit of the temple,
and wretched slaughter was caused by the look of our
armour,
and the confusion arising from our Greek crests.
Then the Danaans, gathering from all sides, groaning
with anger
at the girl being pulled away from them, rush us,
Ajax the fiercest, the two Atrides, all the Greek
host:
just as, at the onset of a tempest, conflicting winds
clash, the west,
the south, and the east that joys in the horses of
dawn:
the forest roars, brine-wet Nereus rages with his trident,
and stirs the waters from their lowest depths.
Even those we have scattered by a ruse, in the dark of
night,
and driven right through the city, re-appear: for the
first time
they recognise our shields and deceitful weapons,
and realise our speech differs in sound to theirs.
In a moment we’re overwhelmed by weight of numbers:
first Coroebus falls, by the armed goddess’s altar, at
the hands
of Peneleus: and Ripheus, who was the most just of all
the Trojans,
and keenest for what was right (the gods’ vision was
otherwise):
Hypanis and Dymas die at the hands of allies:
and your great piety, Panthus, and Apollo’s sacred
headband
can not defend you in your downfall.
Ashes of Ilium, death flames of my people, be witness
that, at your ruin, I did not evade the Danaan
weapons,
nor the risks, and, if it had been my fate to die,
I earned it with my sword. Then we are separated,
Iphitus and Pelias with me, Iphitus weighed down by
the years,
and Pelias, slow-footed, wounded by Ulysses:
immediately we’re summoned to Priam’s palace by the
clamour.
BkII:438-485
The Battle for the Palace
Here’s a great battle indeed, as if the rest of the
war were nothing,
as if others were not dying throughout the whole city,
so we see wild War and the Greeks rushing to the
palace,
and the entrance filled with a press of shields.
Ladders cling to the walls: men climb the stairs under
the very
doorposts, with their left hands holding defensive
shields
against the spears, grasping the sloping stone with
their right.
In turn, the Trojans pull down the turrets and
roof-tiles
of the halls, prepared to defend themselves even in
death,
seeing the end near them, with these as weapons:
and send the gilded roof-beams down, the glory
of their ancient fathers. Others with naked swords
block
the inner doors: these they defend in massed ranks.
Our spirits were reinspired, to bring help to the
king’s palace,
to relieve our warriors with our aid, and add power to
the beaten.
There was an entrance with hidden doors, and a passage
in use
between Priam’s halls, and a secluded gateway beyond,
which the unfortunate Andromache, while the kingdom
stood,
often used to traverse, going, unattended, to her
husband’s parents,
taking the little Astyanax to his grandfather.
I reached the topmost heights of the pediment from
which
the wretched Trojans were hurling their missiles in
vain.
A turret standing on the sloping edge, and rising from
the roof
to the sky, was one from which all Troy could be seen,
the Danaan ships, and the Greek camp: and attacking
its edges
with our swords, where the upper levels offered weaker
mortar,
we wrenched it from its high place, and sent it
flying:
falling suddenly it dragged all to ruin with a roar,
and shattered far and wide over the Greek ranks.
But more arrived, and meanwhile neither the stones
nor any of the various missiles ceased to fly.
In front of the courtyard itself, in the very doorway
of the palace,
Pyrrhus exults, glittering with the sheen of bronze:
like a snake, fed on poisonous herbs, in the light,
that cold winter has held, swollen, under the ground,
and now, gleaming with youth, its skin sloughed,
ripples its slimy back, lifts its front high towards
the sun,
and darts its triple-forked tongue from its jaws.
Huge Periphas, and Automedon the armour-bearer,
driver of Achilles’s team, and all the Scyrian youths,
advance on the palace together and hurl firebrands
onto the roof.
Pyrrhus himself among the front ranks, clutching a
double-axe,
breaks through the stubborn gate, and pulls the bronze
doors
from their hinges: and now, hewing out the timber, he
breaches
the solid oak and opens a huge window with a gaping
mouth.
The palace within appears, and the long halls are
revealed:
the inner sanctums of Priam, and the ancient kings,
appear,
and armed men are seen standing on the very threshold.
BkII:486-558
Priam’s Fate
But, inside the palace, groans mingle with sad
confusion,
and, deep within, the hollow halls howl
with women’s cries: the clamour strikes the golden
stars.
Trembling mothers wander the vast building, clasping
the doorposts, and placing kisses on them. Pyrrhus
drives forward,
with his father Achilles’s strength, no barricades nor
the guards
themselves can stop him: the door collapses under the
ram’s blows,
and the posts collapse, wrenched from their sockets.
Strength makes a road: the Greeks, pour through, force
a passage,
slaughter the front ranks, and fill the wide space
with their men.
A foaming river is not so furious, when it floods,
bursting its banks, overwhelms the barriers against
it,
and rages in a mass through the fields, sweeping
cattle and stables
across the whole plain. I saw Pyrrhus myself, on the
threshold,
mad with slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus:
I saw Hecuba, her hundred women, and Priam at the
altars,
polluting with blood the flames that he himself had
sanctified.
Those fifty chambers, the promise of so many
offspring,
the doorposts, rich with spoils of barbarian gold,
crash down: the Greeks possess what the fire spares.
And maybe you ask, what was Priam’s fate.
When he saw the end of the captive city, the palace
doors
wrenched away, and the enemy among the inner rooms,
the aged man clasped his long-neglected armour
on his old, trembling shoulders, and fastened on his
useless sword,
and hurried into the thick of the enemy seeking death.
In the centre of the halls, and under the sky’s naked
arch,
was a large altar, with an ancient laurel nearby, that
leant
on the altar, and clothed the household gods with
shade.
Here Hecuba, and her daughters, like doves driven
by a dark storm, crouched uselessly by the shrines,
huddled together, clutching at the statues of the
gods.
And when she saw Priam himself dressed in youthful
armour
she cried: “What mad thought, poor husband, urges you
to fasten on these weapons? Where do you run?
The hour demands no such help, nor defences such as
these,
not if my own Hector were here himself. Here, I beg
you,
this altar will protect us all or we’ll die together.”
So she spoke and drew the old man towards her,
and set him down on the sacred steps.
See, Polites, one of Priam’s sons, escaping Pyrrhus’s
slaughter,
runs down the long hallways, through enemies and
spears,
and, wounded, crosses the empty courts.
Pyrrhus chases after him, eager to strike him,
and grasps at him now, and now, with his hand, at
spear-point.
When finally he reached the eyes and gaze of his
parents,
he fell, and poured out his life in a river of blood.
Priam, though even now in death’s clutches,
did not spare his voice at this, or hold back his
anger:
“If there is any justice in heaven, that cares about
such things,
may the gods repay you with fit thanks, and due reward
for your wickedness, for such acts, you who have
made me see my own son’s death in front of my face,
and defiled a father’s sight with murder.
Yet Achilles, whose son you falsely claim to be, was
no
such enemy to Priam: he respected the suppliant’s
rights,
and honour, and returned Hector’s bloodless corpse
to its sepulchre, and sent me home to my kingdom.”
So the old man spoke, and threw his ineffectual spear
without strength, which immediately spun from the
clanging bronze
and hung uselessly from the centre of the shield’s
boss.
Pyrrhus spoke to him: “Then you can be messenger,
carry
the news to my father, to Peleus’s son: remember to
tell him
of degenerate Pyrrhus, and of my sad actions:
now die.” Saying this he dragged him, trembling,
and slithering in the pool of his son’s blood, to the very altar,
and twined his left hand in his hair, raised the
glittering sword
in his right, and buried it to the hilt in his side.
This was the end of Priam’s life: this was the death
that fell to him
by lot, seeing Troy ablaze and its citadel toppled, he
who was
once the magnificent ruler of so many Asian lands and
peoples.
A once mighty body lies on the shore, the head
shorn from its shoulders, a corpse without a name.
BkII:559-587
Aeneas Sees Helen
Then for the first time a wild terror gripped me.
I stood amazed: my dear father’s image rose before me
as I saw a king, of like age, with a cruel wound,
breathing his life away: and my Creusa, forlorn,
and the ransacked house, and the fate of little Iulus.
I looked back, and considered the troops that were
round me.
They had all left me, wearied, and hurled their bodies
to earth,
or sick with misery dropped into the flames.
So I was alone now, when I saw the daughter of
Tyndareus,
Helen, close to Vesta’s portal, hiding silently
in the secret shrine: the bright flames gave me light,
as I wandered, gazing everywhere, randomly.
Afraid of Trojans angered at the fall of Troy,
Greek vengeance, and the fury of a husband she
deserted,
she, the mutual curse of Troy and her own country,
had concealed herself and crouched, a hated thing, by
the altars.
Fire blazed in my spirit: anger rose to avenge my
fallen land,
and to exact the punishment for her wickedness.
“Shall she, unharmed, see Sparta again and her native
Mycenae,
and see her house and husband, parents and children,
and go in the triumphant role of a queen,
attended by a crowd of Trojan women and Phrygian
servants?
When Priam has been put to the sword? Troy consumed
with fire?
The Dardanian shore soaked again and again with blood?
No. Though there’s no great glory in a woman’s
punishment,
and such a conquest wins no praise, still I will be
praised
for extinguishing wickedness and exacting well-earned
punishment, and I’ll delight in having filled my soul
with the flame of revenge, and appeased my people’s ashes.”
BkII:588-623
Aeneas is Visited by his Mother Venus
I blurted out these words, and was rushing on with
raging mind,
when my dear mother came to my vision, never before so
bright
to my eyes, shining with pure light in the night,
goddess for sure, such as she may be seen by the gods,
and taking me by the right hand, stopped me, and,
then,
imparted these words to me from her rose-tinted lips:
“My son, what pain stirs such uncontrollable anger?
Why this rage? Where has your care for what is ours
vanished?
First will you not see whether Creusa, your wife, and
your child
Ascanius still live, and where you have left your
father Anchises
worn-out with age? The Greek ranks surround them on
all sides,
and if my love did not protect them, the flames would
have caught
them before now, and the enemy swords drunk of their
blood.
You do not hate the face of the Spartan daughter of
Tyndareus,
nor is Paris to blame: the ruthlessness of the gods,
of the gods,
brought down this power, and toppled Troy from its
heights.
See (for I’ll tear away all the mist that now,
shrouding your sight,
dims your mortal vision, and darkens everything with
moisture:
don’t be afraid of what your mother commands, or
refuse to obey
her wisdom): here, where you see shattered heaps of
stone
torn from stone, and smoke billowing mixed with dust,
Neptune is shaking the walls, and the foundations,
stirred
by his mighty trident, and tearing the whole city up
by it roots.
There, Juno, the fiercest, is first to take the Scaean
Gate, and,
sword at her side, calls on her troops from the ships,
in rage.
Now, see, Tritonian Pallas, standing on the highest
towers,
sending lightning from the storm-cloud, and her grim
Gorgon
breastplate. Father Jupiter himself supplies the
Greeks with
courage, and fortunate strength, himself excites the
gods against
the Trojan army. Hurry your departure, son, and put an
end
to your efforts. I will not leave you, and I will
place you
safe at your father’s door.” She spoke, and hid
herself
in the dense shadows of night. Dreadful shapes
appeared,
and the vast powers of gods opposed to Troy.
BkII:624-670
Aeneas Finds his Family
Then in truth all Ilium seemed to me to sink in
flames,
and Neptune’s Troy was toppled from her base:
just as when foresters on the mountain heights
compete to uproot an ancient ash tree, struck
time and again by axe and blade, it threatens
continually
to fall, with trembling foliage and shivering crown,
till gradually vanquished by the blows it groans at
last,
and torn from the ridge, crashes down in ruin.
I descend, and, led by a goddess, am freed from flames
and enemies: the spears give way, and the flames
recede.
And now, when I reached the threshold of my father’s
house,
and my former home, my father, whom it was my first
desire
to carry into the high mountains, and whom I first
sought out,
refused to extend his life or endure exile, since Troy
had fallen.
“Oh, you,” he cried, “whose blood has the vigour of
youth,
and whose power is unimpaired in its force, it’s for
you
to take flight. As for me, if the gods had wished to
lengthen
the thread of my life, they’d have spared my house. It
is
more than enough that I saw one destruction, and
survived
one taking of the city. Depart, saying farewell to my
body
lying here so, yes so. I shall find death with my own
hand:
the enemy will pity me, and look for plunder. The loss
of my burial is nothing. Clinging to old age for so long,
I am useless, and hated by the gods, ever since
the father of the gods and ruler of men breathed the
winds
of his lightning-bolt onto me, and touched me with
fire.”
So he persisted in saying, and remained adamant.
We, on our side, Creusa, my wife, and Ascanius, all
our household,
weeping bitterly, determined that he should not
destroy everything
along with himself, and crush us by urging our doom.
He refused and clung to his place and his purpose.
I hurried to my weapons again, and, miserably, longed
for death,
since what tactic or opportunity was open to us now?
“ Did you think I could leave you, father, and depart?
Did such sinful words fall from your lips?
If it pleases the gods to leave nothing of our great
city standing,
if this is set in your mind, if it delights you to add
yourself
and all that’s yours to the ruins of Troy, the door is
open
to that death: soon Pyrrhus comes, drenched in Priam’s
blood,
he who butchers the son in front of the father, the
father at the altar.
Kind mother, did you rescue me from fire and sword
for this, to see the enemy in the depths of my house,
and Ascanius, and my father, and Creusa, slaughtered,
thrown together in a heap, in one another’s blood?
Weapons men, bring weapons: the last day calls to the
defeated.
Lead me to the Greeks again: let me revisit the battle
anew.
This day we shall not all perish unavenged.”
BkII:671-704
The Omen
So, again, I fasten on my sword, slip my left arm
into the shield’s strap, adjust it, and rush from the
house.
But see, my wife clings to the threshold, clasps my
foot,
and holds little Iulus up towards his father:
“If you go to die, take us with you too, at all costs:
but if
as you’ve proved you trust in the weapons you wear,
defend this house first. To whom do you abandon little
Iulus,
and your father, and me, I who was once spoken of as
your wife?”
Crying out like this she filled the whole house with
her groans,
when suddenly a wonder, marvellous to speak of,
occurred.
See, between the hands and faces of his grieving
parents,
a gentle light seemed to shine from the crown
of Iulus’s head, and a soft flame, harmless in its
touch,
licked at his hair, and grazed his forehead.
Trembling with fear, we hurry to flick away the
blazing strands,
and extinguish the sacred fires with water.
But Anchises, my father, lifts his eyes to the
heavens, in delight,
and raises his hands and voice to the sky:
“All-powerful Jupiter, if you’re moved by any prayers,
see us, and, grant but this: if we are worthy through
our virtue,
show us a sign of it, Father, and confirm your omen.”
The old man had barely spoken when, with a sudden
crash,
it thundered on the left, and a star, through the
darkness,
slid from the sky, and flew, trailing fire, in a burst
of light.
We watched it glide over the highest rooftops,
and bury its brightness, and the sign of its passage,
in the forests of Mount Ida: then the furrow of its
long track
gave out a glow, and, all around, the place smoked
with sulphur.
At this my father, truly overcome, raised himself
towards the sky,
and spoke to the gods, and proclaimed the sacred star.
“Now no delay: I follow, and where you lead, there am
I.
Gods of my fathers, save my line, save my grandson.
This omen is yours, and Troy is in your divine power.
I accept, my son, and I will not refuse to go with
you.”
BkII:705-729
Aeneas and his Family Leave Troy
He speaks, and now the fire is more audible,
through the city, and the blaze rolls its tide nearer.
“Come then, dear father, clasp my neck: I will
carry you on my shoulders: that task won’t weigh on
me.
Whatever may happen, it will be for us both, the same
shared risk,
and the same salvation. Let little Iulus come with me,
and let my wife follow our footsteps at a distance.
You servants, give your attention to what I’m saying.
At the entrance to the city there’s a mound, an
ancient temple
of forsaken Ceres, and a venerable cypress nearby,
protected through the years by the reverence of our
fathers:
let’s head to that one place by diverse paths.
You, father, take the sacred objects, and our
country’s gods,
in your hands: until I’ve washed in running water,
it would be a sin for me, coming from such fighting
and recent slaughter, to touch them.” So saying,
bowing my neck,
I spread a cloak made of a tawny lion’s hide over my
broad shoulders, and bend to the task: little Iulus clasps his hand
in mine, and follows his father’s longer strides.
My wife walks behind. We walk on through the shadows
of places, and I whom till then no shower of spears,
nor crowd of Greeks in hostile array, could move,
now I’m terrified by every breeze, and startled by
every noise,
anxious, and fearful equally for my companion and my
burden.
BkII:730-795
The Loss of Creusa
And now I was near the gates, and thought I had completed
my journey, when suddenly the sound of approaching
feet
filled my hearing, and, peering through the darkness,
my father cried: “My son, run my son, they are near
us:
I see their glittering shields and gleaming bronze.”
Some hostile power, at this, scattered my muddled
wits.
for while I was following alleyways, and straying
from the region of streets we knew, did my wife Creusa
halt,
snatched away from me by wretched fate?
Or did she wander from the path or collapse with
weariness?
Who knows? She was never restored to our sight,
nor did I look back for my lost one, or cast a thought
behind me,
until we came to the mound, and ancient Ceres’s sacred
place.
Here when all were gathered together at last, one was
missing,
and had escaped the notice of friends, child and
husband.
What man or god did I not accuse in my madness:
what did I know of in the city’s fall crueller than
this?
I place Ascanius, and my father Anchises, and the gods
of Troy,
in my companions’ care, and conceal them in a winding
valley:
I myself seek the city once more, and take up my
shining armour.
I’m determined to incur every risk again, and retrace
all Troy, and once more expose my life to danger.
First I look for the wall, and the dark threshold of
the gate
from which my path led, and I retrace the landmarks
of my course in the night, scanning them with my
eye.
Everywhere the terror in my heart, and the silence
itself,
dismay me. Then I take myself homewards, in case
by chance, by some chance, she has made her way there.
The Greeks have invaded, and occupied, the whole
house.
Suddenly eager fire, rolls over the rooftop, in the
wind:
the flames take hold, the blaze rages to the heavens.
I pass by and see again Priam’s palace and the
citadel.
Now Phoenix, and fatal Ulysses, the chosen guards,
watch over
the spoils, in the empty courts of Juno’s sanctuary.
Here the Trojan treasures are gathered from every
part,
ripped from the blazing shrines, tables of the gods,
solid gold bowls, and plundered robes.
Mothers and trembling sons stand round in long ranks.
I even dared to hurl my shouts through the shadows,
filling the streets with my clamour, and in my misery,
redoubling my useless cries, again and again.
Searching, and raging endlessly among the city roofs,
the unhappy ghost and true shadow of Creusa
appeared before my eyes, in a form greater than I’d
known.
I was dumbfounded, my hair stood on end, and my voice
stuck in my throat. Then she spoke and with these
words
mitigated my distress: “Oh sweet husband, what use is
it
to indulge in such mad grief? This has not happened
without the divine will: neither its laws nor the
ruler
of great Olympus let you take Creusa with you,
away from here. Yours is long exile, you must plough
a vast reach of sea: and you will come to Hesperia’s
land,
where Lydian Tiber flows in gentle course among the
farmers’
rich fields. There, happiness, kingship and a royal
wife
will be yours. Banish these tears for your beloved
Creusa.
I, a Trojan woman, and daughter-in-law to divine
Venus,
shall never see the noble halls of the Dolopians,
or Myrmidons, or go as slave to some Greek wife:
instead the great mother of the gods keeps me on this
shore.
Now farewell, and preserve your love for the son we
share.”
When she had spoken these words, leaving me weeping
and wanting to say so many things, she faded into thin
air.
Three times I tried to throw my arms about her neck:
three times her form fled my hands, clasped in vain,
like the light breeze, most of all like a winged
dream.
So at last when night was done, I returned to my
friends.
BkII:796-804
Aeneas Leaves Troy
And here, amazed, I found that a great number of new
companions had streamed in, women and men,
a crowd gathering for exile, a wretched throng.
They had come from all sides, ready, with courage and
wealth,
for whatever land I wished to lead them to, across the
seas.
And now Lucifer was rising above the heights of Ida,
bringing the dawn, and the Greeks held the barricaded
entrances to the gates, nor was there any hope of
rescue.
I desisted, and, carrying my father, took to the
hills.
BkIII:1-18
Aeneas Sails to Thrace
After the gods had seen fit to destroy Asia’s power
and Priam’s innocent people, and proud Ilium had
fallen,
and all of Neptune’s Troy breathed smoke from the
soil,
we were driven by the gods’ prophecies to search out
distant exile, and deserted lands, and we built a
fleet
below Antandros and the peaks of Phrygian Ida, unsure
where fate would carry us, or where we’d be allowed to
settle,
and we gathered our forces together. Summer had barely
begun,
when Anchises, my father, ordered us to set sail with
destiny:
I left my native shore with tears, the harbour and the
fields
where Troy once stood. I travelled the deep, an exile,
with my friends and my son, and the great gods of our
house.
Far off is a land of vast plains where Mars is
worshipped
(worked by the Thracians) once ruled by fierce
Lycurgus,
a friend of Troy in the past, and with gods who were
allies,
while fortune lasted. I went there, and founded my
first city
named Aeneadae from my name, on the shore
in the curving bay, beginning it despite fate’s
adversity.
BkIII:19-68
The Grave of Polydorus
I was making a sacrifice to the gods, and my mother
Venus,
Dione’s daughter, with auspices for the work begun,
and had killed
a fine bull on the shore, for the supreme king of the
sky-lords.
By chance, there was a mound nearby, crowned with
cornel
bushes, and bristling with dense spikes of myrtle.
I went near, and trying to tear up green wood from the
soil
to decorate the altar with leafy branches, I saw
a wonder, dreadful and marvellous to tell of.
From the first bush, its broken roots torn from the
ground,
drops of dark blood dripped, and stained the earth
with fluid.
An icy shiver gripped my limbs, and my blood chilled
with terror.
Again I went on to pluck a stubborn shoot from
another,
probing the hidden cause within: and dark blood
flowed from the bark of the second. Troubled greatly
in spirit, I prayed to the Nymphs of the wild,
and father Gradivus, who rules the Thracian fields,
to look with due kindness on this vision, and lessen
its significance. But when I attacked the third
with greater effort, straining with my knees against
the sand
(to speak or be silent?), a mournful groan was audible
from deep in the mound, and a voice came to my ears:
“Why do you wound a poor wretch, Aeneas? Spare me now
in my tomb, don’t stain your virtuous hands, Troy bore
me,
who am no stranger to you, nor does this blood flow
from
some dull block. Oh, leave this cruel land: leave this
shore
of greed. For I am Polydorus. Here a crop of iron
spears
carpeted my transfixed corpse, and has ripened into
sharp spines.”
Then truly I was stunned, my mind crushed by anxious
dread,
my hair stood up on end, and my voice stuck in my
throat.
Priam, the unfortunate, seeing the city encircled by
the siege,
and despairing of Trojan arms, once sent this
Polydorus, secretly,
with a great weight of gold, to be raised, by the Thracian
king.
When the power of Troy was broken, and her fortunes
ebbed,
the Thracian broke every divine law, to follow
Agamemnon’s
cause, and his victorious army, murders Polydorus, and
takes
the gold by force. Accursed hunger for gold, to what
do you
not drive human hearts! When terror had left my bones
I referred this divine vision to the people’s
appointed leaders,
my father above all, and asked them what they thought.
All were of one mind, to leave this wicked land, and
depart
a place of hospitality defiled, and sail our fleet
before the wind.
So we renewed the funeral rites for Polydorus, and
piled
the earth high on his barrow: sad altars were raised
to the Shades, with dark sacred ribbons and black
cypress,
the Trojan women around, hair streaming,
as is the custom: we offered foaming bowls of warm
milk,
and dishes of sacrificial blood, and bound the spirit
to its tomb, and raised a loud shout of farewell.
BkIII:69-120
The Trojans Reach Delos
Then as soon as we’ve confidence in the waves, and the
winds
grant us calm seas, and the soft whispering breeze
calls to the deep,
my companions float the ships and crowd to the shore.
We set out from harbour, and lands and cities recede.
In the depths of the sea lies a sacred island, dearest
of all
to the mother of the Nereids, and Aegean Neptune,
that wandered by coasts and shores, until Apollo,
affectionately, tied it to high Myconos, and Gyaros,
making it fixed and inhabitable, scorning the storms.
I sail there: it welcomes us peacefully, weary as we
are,
to its safe harbour. Landing, we do homage to Apollo’s
city.
King Anius, both king of the people and high-priest of
Apollo,
his forehead crowned with the sacred headband and holy
laurel,
meets us, and recognises an old friend in Anchises:
we clasp hands in greeting and enter his house.
I paid homage to the god’s temple of ancient stone:
“Grant us a true home, Apollo, grant a weary people
walls,
and a race, and a city that will endure: protect this
second
citadel of Troy, that survives the Greeks and pitiless
Achilles.
Whom should we follow? Where do you command us to go?
Where should we settle? Grant us an omen, father, to
stir our hearts.
I had scarcely spoken: suddenly everything seemed to
tremble,
the god’s thresholds and his laurel crowns, and the
whole hill
round us moved, and the tripod groaned as the shrine
split open.
Humbly we seek the earth, and a voice comes to our
ears:
“Enduring Trojans, the land which first bore you from
its
parent stock, that same shall welcome you, restored,
to its
fertile breast. Search out your ancient mother.
There the house of Aeneas shall rule all shores,
his children’s children, and those that are born to
them.”
So Phoebus spoke: and there was a great shout of joy
mixed
with confusion, and all asked what walls those were,
and where
it is Phoebus calls the wanderers to, commanding them
to return.
Then my father, thinking of the records of the
ancients, said:
“Listen, O princes, and learn what you may hope for.
Crete lies in the midst of the sea, the island of mighty
Jove,
where Mount Ida is, the cradle of our race.
They inhabit a hundred great cities, in the richest of
kingdoms,
from which our earliest ancestor, Teucer, if I
remember the tale
rightly, first sailed to Trojan shores, and chose a
site
for his royal capital. Until then Ilium and the towers
of the citadel
did not stand there: men lived in the depths of the
valleys.
The Mother who inhabits Cybele is Cretan, and the
cymbals
of the Corybantes, and the grove of Ida: from Crete
came
the faithful silence of her rites, and the yoked lions
drawing the lady’s chariot. So come, and let us follow
where the god’s command may lead, let us placate
the winds, and seek out the Cretan kingdom.
It is no long journey away: if only Jupiter is with
us,
the third dawn will find our fleet on the Cretan
shores.”
So saying, he sacrificed the due offerings at the
altars,
a bull to Neptune, a bull to you, glorious Apollo, a
black sheep
to the Storm god, a white to the auspicious
Westerlies.
BkIII:121-171
The Plague and a Vision
A rumour spread that Prince Idomeneus had been driven
from his father’s kingdom, and the Cretan shores were
deserted,
her houses emptied of enemies, and the abandoned homes
waiting for us. We left Ortygia’s harbour, and sped
over the sea,
threading the foaming straits thick with islands,
Naxos
with its Bacchic worship in the hills, green Donysa,
Olearos,
snow-white Paros, and the Cyclades, scattered over the
waters.
The sailors’ cries rose, as they competed in their
various tasks:
the crew shouted: “We’re headed for Crete, and our
ancestors.”
A wind rising astern sent us on our way, and at last
we glided by the ancient shores of the Curetes.
Then I worked eagerly on the walls of our chosen city,
and called
it Pergamum, and exhorted my people, delighting in the
name,
to show love for their homes, and build a covered
fortress.
Now the ships were usually beached on the dry sand:
the young men were busy with weddings and their fresh
fields:
I was deciding on laws and homesteads: suddenly,
from some infected region of the sky, came a wretched
plague,
corrupting bodies, trees, and crops, and a season of
death.
They relinquished sweet life, or dragged their sick
limbs
around: then Sirius blazed over barren fields:
the grass withered, and the sickly harvest denied its
fruits.
My father urged us to retrace the waves, and revisit
the oracle of Apollo at Delos, and beg for protection,
ask where the end might be to our weary fate, where he
commands
that we seek help for our trouble, where to set our
course.
It was night, and sleep had charge of earth’s
creatures:
The sacred statues of the gods, the Phrygian Penates,
that I had carried with me from Troy, out of the
burning city,
seemed to stand there before my eyes, as I lay in
sleep,
perfectly clear in the light, where the full moon
streamed through the window casements: then they spoke
to me and with their words dispelled my cares:
“Apollo speaks here what he would say to you, on
reaching Delos,
and sends us besides, as you see, to your threshold.
When Try burned we followed you and your weapons,
we crossed the swelling seas with you on your ships,
we too shall raise your descendants yet to be, to the
stars,
and grant empire to your city. Build great walls for
the great,
and do not shrink from the long labour of exile.
Change your country. These are not the shores that
Delian
Apollo urged on you, he did not order you to settle in
Crete.
There is a place the Greeks call Hesperia by name,
an ancient land powerful in arms and in richness of
the soil:
There the Oenotrians lived: now the rumour is that
a younger race has named it Italy after their leader.
That is our true home, Dardanus and father Iasius,
from whom our race first came, sprang from there.
Come, bear these words of truth joyfully to your old
father,
that he might seek Corythus and Ausonia’s lands:
Jupiter denies the fields of Dicte to you.”
BkIII:172-208
The Trojans Leave Crete for Italy
Amazed by such a vision, and the voices of the gods,
(it was not a dream, but I seemed to recognise their expression,
before me, their wreathed hair, their living faces:
then a cold sweat bathed all my limbs)
my body leapt from the bed, and I lifted my voice
and upturned palms to heaven, and offered pure
gifts on the hearth-fire. The rite completed, with joy
I told Anchises of this revelation, revealing it all
in order.
He understood about the ambiguity in our origins, and
the dual
descent, and that he had been deceived by a fresh
error,
about our ancient country. Then he spoke: “My son,
troubled
by Troy’s fate, Only Cassandra prophesied such an
outcome.
Now I remember her foretelling that this was destined
for our race,
and often spoke of Hesperia, and the Italian kingdom.
Who’d believe that Trojans would travel to Hesperia’s
shores?
Who’d have been moved by Cassandra, the prophetess,
then?
Let’s trust to Apollo, and, warned by him, take the
better course.”
So he spoke, and we were delighted to obey his every
word.
We departed this home as well, and, leaving some
people behind,
set sail, and ran through the vast ocean in our hollow
ships.
When the fleet had reached the high seas and the land
was no longer seen, sky and ocean on all sides, then
a dark-blue rain cloud settled overhead, bringing
night and storm, and the waves bristled with shadows.
Immediately the winds rolled over the water and great
seas rose:
we were scattered here and there in the vast abyss.
Storm-clouds shrouded the day, and the night mists
hid the sky: lightning flashed again from the torn
clouds.
We were thrown off course, and wandered the blind
waves.
Palinurus himself was unable to tell night from day in
the sky,
and could not determine his path among the waves.
So for three days, and as many starless nights,
we wandered uncertainly, in a dark fog, over the sea.
At last, on the fourth day, land was first seen to
rise,
revealing far off mountains and rolling smoke.
The sails fell, we stood to the oars: without pause,
the sailors,
at full stretch, churned the foam, and swept the blue
sea.
BkIII:209-277
The Harpies
Free of the waves I’m welcomed first by the shores
of the Strophades, the Clashing Islands. The
Strophades
are fixed now in the great Ionian Sea, but are called
by the Greek name. There dread Celaeno and the rest
of the Harpies live, since Phineus’s house was denied
them,
and they left his tables where they fed, in fear.
No worse monsters than these, no crueller plague,
ever rose from the waters of Styx, at the gods’ anger.
These birds have the faces of virgin girls,
foulest excrement flowing from their bellies,
clawed hands, and faces always thin with hunger.
Now when, arriving here, we enter port,
we see fat herds of cattle scattered over the plains,
and flocks of goats, unguarded, in the meadows.
We rush at them with our swords, calling on Jove
himself
and the gods to join us in our plunder: then we build
seats on the curving beach, and feast on the rich
meats.
But suddenly the Harpies arrive, in a fearsome swoop
from the hills, flapping their wings with a huge
noise,
snatching at the food, and fouling everything with
their
filthy touch: then there’s a deadly shriek amongst the
foul stench.
We set out the tables again, and relight the altar
fires,
in a deep recess under an overhanging rock,
closed off by trees and trembling shadows:
again from another part of the sky, some hidden lair,
the noisy crowd hovers, with taloned feet around their
prey,
polluting the food with their mouths. Then I order my
friends
to take up their weapons and make war on that dreadful
race.
They do exactly that, obeying orders, placing hidden
swords
in the grass, and burying their shields out of sight.
Then when the birds swoop, screaming, along the curved
beach,
Misenus, from his high lookout, gives the signal on
hollow bronze.
My friends charge, and, in a new kind of battle,
attempt
to wound these foul ocean birds with their swords.
But they don’t register the blows to their plumage, or
the wounds
to their backs, they flee quickly, soaring beneath the
heavens,
leaving behind half-eaten food, and the traces of
their filth.
Only Celaeno, ominous prophetess, settles on a high
cliff,
and bursts out with this sound from her breast:
“Are you ready to bring war to us, sons of Laomedon,
is it war,
for the cows you killed, the bullocks you slaughtered,
driving the innocent Harpies from their father’s
country?
Take these words of mine to your hearts then, and set
them there.
I, the eldest of the Furies, reveal to you what the
all-powerful
Father prophesied to Apollo, and Phoebus Apollo to me.
Italy is the path you take, and, invoking the winds,
you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours freely:
but you will not surround the city granted you with
walls
until dire hunger, and the sin of striking at us,
force you
to consume your very tables with devouring jaws.”
She spoke, and fled back to the forest borne by her
wings.
But my companions’ chill blood froze with sudden fear:
their courage dropped, and they told me to beg for
peace,
with vows and prayers, forgoing weapons,
no matter if these were goddesses or fatal, vile
birds.
And my father Anchises, with outstretched hands, on
the shore,
called to the great gods and declared the due
sacrifice:
“Gods, avert these threats, gods, prevent these acts,
and, in peace, protect the virtuous!” Then he ordered
us
to haul in the cables from the shore, unfurl and
spread the sails.
South winds stretched the canvas: we coursed over
foaming seas,
wherever the winds and the helmsman dictated our
course.
Now wooded Zacynthus appeared amongst the waves,
Dulichium, Same and Neritos’s steep cliffs.
We ran past Laertes’s kingdom, Ithacas’s reefs,
and cursed the land that reared cruel Ulysses.
Soon the cloudy heights of Mount Leucata were
revealed,
as well, and Apollo’s headland, feared by sailors.
We headed wearily for it, and approached the little
town:
the anchor was thrown from the prow, the stern rested
on the beach.
BkIII:278-293
The Games at Actium
So, beyond hope, achieving land at last, we purify
ourselves for Jove, and light offerings on the altars,
and celebrate Trojan games on the shore of Actium.
My naked companions, slippery with oil,
indulge in the wrestling-bouts of their homeland:
it’s good to have slipped past so many Greek cities
and held our course in flight through the midst of the
enemy.
Meanwhile the sun rolls through the long year
and icy winter stirs the waves with northerly gales:
I fix a shield of hollow bronze, once carried by
mighty Abas,
on the entrance pillars, and mark the event with a
verse:
AENEAS OFFERS THIS ARMOUR FROM CONQUERING GREEKS
then I order them to man the benches and leave
harbour:
in rivalry, my friends strike the sea and sweep the
waves.
We soon leave behind the windblown heights of
Phaeacia,
pass the shores of Epirus, enter Chaonia’s harbour
and approach the lofty city of Buthrotum.
BkIII:294-355
Andromache in Chaonia
Here a rumour of something unbelievable greeted our
ears:
Priam’s son, Helenus, reigning over Greek cities,
having won the wife and kingdom of Pyrrhus, Aeacus’s
scion,
Andromache being given again to a husband of her race.
I was astounded, and my heart burned with an amazing
passion
to speak to the man, and learn of such events.
I walked from the harbour, leaving the fleet and the
shore,
when, by chance, in a sacred grove near the city, by a
false Simois,
Andromache was making an annual offering, sad gifts,
to Hector’s ashes, and calling his spirit to the tomb,
an empty mound of green turf, and twin altars, she had
sanctified,
a place for tears. When she saw me approaching and
recognised,
with amazement, Trojan weapons round her, she froze as
she gazed,
terrified by these great wonders, and the heat left
her limbs.
She half-fell and after a long while, scarcely able
to, said:
“Are you a real person, a real messenger come here to
me,
son of the goddess? Are you alive? Or if the kindly
light has faded,
where then is Hector?” She spoke, and poured out her
tears,
and filled the whole place with her weeping. Given her
frenzy,
I barely replied with a few words, and, moved, I spoke
disjointedly:
“Surely, I live, and lead a life full of extremes:
don’t be unsure,
for you see truly. Ah! What fate has overtaken you,
fallen
from so great a husband? Or has good fortune worthy
enough
for Hector’s Andromache, visited you again? Are you
still
Pyrrhus’s wife?” She lowered her eyes and spoke
quietly:
“O happy beyond
all others was that virgin daughter
of Priam, commanded to die beside an enemy tomb,
under Troy’s high walls, who never suffered fate’s
lottery,
or, as a prisoner, reached her victorious master’s
bed!
Carried over distant seas, my country set afire, I
endured
the scorn of Achilles’s son, and his youthful
arrogance,
giving birth as a slave: he, who then, pursuing
Hermione,
Helen’s daughter, and a Spartan marriage, transferred
me
to Helenus’s keeping, a servant to a servant.
But Orestes, inflamed by great love for his stolen
bride,
and driven by the Furies for his crime, caught him,
unawares, and killed him by his father’s altar.
At Pyrrhus’s death a part of the kingdom passed, by
right
to Helenus, who named the Chaonian fields, and all
Chaonia, after Chaon of Troy, and built a Pergamus,
and this fortress of Ilium, on the mountain ridge.
But what winds, what fates, set your course for you?
Or what god drives you, unknowingly, to our shores?
What of the child, Ascanius? Does he live, and graze
on air,
he whom Creusa bore to you in vanished Troy?
Has he any love still for his lost mother?
Have his father Aeneas and his uncle Hector roused
in him any of their ancient courage or virile spirit?”
Weeping, she poured out these words, and was starting
a long vain lament, when heroic Helenus, Priam’s son,
approached from the city, with a large retinue,
and recognised us as his own, and lead us, joyfully,
to the gates, and poured out tears freely at every
word.
I walked on, and saw a little Troy, and a copy of the
great
citadel, and a dry stream, named after the Xanthus,
and embraced the doorposts of a Scaean Gate.
My Trojans enjoyed the friendly city with me no less.
The king received them in a broad colonnade:
they poured out cups of wine in the centre of a
courtyard,
and held out their dishes while food was served on
gold.
BkIII:356-462
The Prophecy of Helenus
Now day after day has gone by, and the breezes call
to the sails, and the canvas swells with a rising
Southerly:
I go to Helenus, the seer, with these words and ask:
“Trojan-born, agent of the gods, you who know Apollo’s
will,
the tripods, the laurels at Claros, the stars, the
language
of birds, and the omens of their wings in flight,
come, speak (since a favourable oracle told me
all my route, and all the gods in their divinity urged
me
to seek Italy, and explore the furthest lands:
only the Harpy, Celaeno, predicts fresh portents,
evil to tell of, and threatens bitter anger
and vile famine) first, what dangers shall I avoid?
Following what course can I overcome such troubles?”
Helenus, first sacrificing bullocks according to the
ritual,
obtained the gods’ grace, then loosened the headband
from his holy brow, and led me, anxious at so much
divine power, with his own hand, to your threshold
Apollo,
and then the priest prophesied this, from the divine
mouth:
“Son of the goddess, since the truth is clear, that
you sail
the deep blessed by the higher powers (so the king of
the gods
allots our fates, and rolls the changes, so the order
alters),
I’ll explain a few things of many, in my words to you,
so you may travel foreign seas more safely, and can
find
rest in an Italian haven: for the Fates forbid Helenus
to know further, and Saturnian Juno denies him speech.
Firstly, a long pathless path, by long coastlines,
separates
you from that far-off Italy, whose neighbouring port
you intend to enter, unknowingly thinking it nearby.
Before you can build your city in a safe land,
you must bend the oar in Sicilian waters,
and pass the levels of the Italian seas, in your
ships,
the infernal lakes, and Aeaean Circe’s island.
I’ll tell you of signs: keep them stored in your
memory.
When, in your distress, you find a huge sow lying on
the shore,
by the waters of a remote river, under the oak trees,
that has farrowed a litter of thirty young, a white
sow,
lying on the ground, with white piglets round her teats,
that place shall be your city, there’s true rest from
your labours.
And do not dread that gnawing of tables, in your
future:
the fates will find a way, Apollo will be there at
your call.
But avoid these lands, and this nearer coastline
of the Italian shore, washed by our own
ocean tide: hostile Greeks inhabit every town.
The Narycian Locri have built a city here,
and Lyctian Idomeneus has filled the plain
with soldiers: here is that little Petelia, of
Philoctetes,
leader of the Meliboeans, relying on its walls.
Then when your fleet has crossed the sea, and anchored
and the altars are raised for your offerings on the
shore,
veil your hair, clothed in your purple robes, so that
in worshipping the gods no hostile face may intrude
among the sacred flames, and disturb the omens.
Let your friends adopt this mode of sacrifice, and
yourself:
and let your descendants remain pure in this religion.
But when the wind carries you, on leaving, to the
Sicilian shore,
and the barriers of narrow Pelorus open ahead,
make for the seas and land to port, in a long circuit:
avoid the shore and waters on the starboard side.
They say, when the two were one continuous stretch of
land,
they one day broke apart, torn by the force of a vast
upheaval
(time’s remote antiquity enables such great changes).
The sea flowed between them with force, and severed
the Italian from the Sicilian coast, and a narrow
tideway
washes the cities and fields on separate shores.
Scylla holds the right side, implacable Charybdis the
left,
who, in the depths of the abyss, swallows the vast
flood
three times into the downward gulf and alternately
lifts
it to the air, and lashes the heavens with her waves.
But a cave surrounds Scylla with dark hiding-places,
and she thrusts her mouths out, and drags ships onto
the rocks.
Above she has human shape, and is a girl, with lovely
breasts,
a girl, down to her sex, below it she is a sea-monster
of huge size,
with dolphins’ tails joined to a belly formed of
wolves.
It is better to round the point of Pachynus,
lingering, and circling Sicily on a long course,
than to once catch sight of hideous Scylla in her vast
cave
and the rocks that echo to her sea-dark hounds.
Beyond this, if Helenus has any knowledge, if the seer
can be believed, if Apollo fills his spirit with
truth,
son of the goddess, I will say this one thing, this
one thing
that is worth all, and I’ll repeat the warning again
and again,
honour great Juno’s divinity above all, with prayer,
and recite
your vows to Juno freely, and win over that powerful
lady
with humble gifts: so at last you’ll leave Sicily
behind
and reach the coast of Italy, victorious.
Once brought there, approach the city of Cumae,
the ghostly lakes, and Avernus, with its whispering
groves,
gaze on the raving prophetess, who sings the fates
deep in the rock, and commits names and signs to
leaves.
Whatever verses the virgin writes on the leaves,
she arranges in order, and stores them high up in her
cave.
They stay in place, motionless, and keep in rank:
but once a light breeze ruffles them, at the turn of a
hinge,
and the opening door disturbs the delicate leaves, she
never
thinks to retrieve them, as they flutter through the
rocky cave,
or to return them to their places, or reconstitute the
prophecies:
men go away unanswered, and detest the Sibyl’s lair.
Though your friends complain, and though your course
calls your sails urgently to the deep, and a following
wind
might fill the canvas, don’t overvalue the loss in any
delay,
but visit the prophetess, and beg her with prayers to
speak
the oracle herself, and loose her voice through
willing lips.
She will rehearse the peoples of Italy, the wars to
come,
and how you might evade or endure each trial,
and, shown respect, she’ll grant you a favourable
journey.
These are the things you can be warned of by my voice.
Go now, and by your actions raise great Troy to the
stars.”
BkIII:463-505
The Departure from Chaonia
After the seer had spoken these words with benign
lips,
he ordered heavy gifts of gold and carved ivory
to be carried to our ships, and stored massive
silverware
in the holds, cauldrons from Dodona, a hooked
breastplate
woven with triple-linked gold, and a fine conical
helmet
with a crest of horse-hair, Pyrrhus’s armour.
There were gifts of his own for my father too.
Helenus added horses and sea-pilots: he manned
our oars: he also equipped my friends with weapons.
Meanwhile Anchises ordered us to rig sails on the
ships,
so the rushing wind would not be lost, by our delay.
Apollo’s agent spoke to him with great respect:
“Anchises, worthy of proud marriage with Venus,
cared for by the gods, twice saved from the ruins of
Troy,
behold your land of Italy: sail and take it.
But still you must slide past it on the seas:
the part of Italy that Apollo named is far away.
Go onward, happy in your son’s love. Why should I say
more,
and delay your catching the rising wind?”
Andromache also, grieved at this final parting,
brought robes
embroidered with gold weave, and a Phrygian cloak
for Ascanius, nor did she fail to honour him,
and loaded him down with gifts of cloth, and said:
“Take these as well, my child, remembrances for you
from my hand, and witness of the lasting love of
Andromache,
Hector’s wife. Take these last gifts from your kin,
O you, the sole image left to me of my Astyanax.
He had the same eyes, the same hands, the same lips:
and now he would be growing up like you, equal in
age.”
My tears welled as I spoke these parting words:
“Live happily, you whose fortunes are already
determined:
we are summoned onwards from destiny to destiny.
For you, peace is achieved: you’ve no need to plough
the levels
of the sea, you’ve no need to seek Italy’s
ever-receding fields.
I wish that you might gaze at your likeness of
Xanthus,
and a Troy built by your own hands, under happier
auspices,
one which might be less exposed to the Greeks.
If I ever reach the Tiber, and the Tiber’s
neighbouring fields,
and gaze on city walls granted to my people, we’ll one
day
make one Troy, in spirit, from each of our kindred
cities
and allied peoples, in Epirus, in Italy, who have the
same Dardanus
for ancestor, the same history: let it be left to our
descendants care.”
BkIII:506-547
In Sight of Italy
We sail on over the sea, close to the Ceraunian cliffs
nearby,
on course for Italy, and the shortest path over the
waves.
Meanwhile the sun is setting and the darkened hills
are in shadow.
Having shared oars, we stretch out, near the waves, on
the surface
of the long-desired land, and, scattered across the
dry beach,
we rest our bodies: sleep refreshes our weary limbs.
Night, lead by the Hours, is not yet in mid-course:
Palinurus rises alertly from his couch, tests all
the winds, and listens to the breeze: he notes
all the stars gliding through the silent sky,
Arcturus, the rainy Pleiades, both the Bears,
and surveys Orion, armed with gold. When he sees
that all tallies, and the sky is calm, he sounds
a loud call from the ship’s stern: we break camp,
attempt our route, and spread the winged sails.
And now Dawn blushes as she puts the stars to flight,
when we see, far off, dark hills and low-lying Italy.
First Achates proclaims Italy, then my companions
hail Italy with a joyful shout. Then my father Anchises
took up a large bowl, filled it with wine,
and standing in the high stern, called to the heavens:
“You gods, lords of the sea and earth and storms,
carry us
onward on a gentle breeze, and breathe on us with
kindness!”
The wind we longed-for rises, now as we near, a
harbour opens,
and a temple is visible on Minerva’s Height.
My companions furl the sails and turn the prows to
shore.
The harbour is carved in an arc by the eastern tides:
its jutting rocks boil with salt spray, so that it
itself is hidden:
towering cliffs extend their arms in a twin wall,
and the temple lies back from the shore.
Here I see four horses in the long grass, white as
snow,
grazing widely over the plain, our first omen.
And my father Anchises cries: “O foreign land, you
bring us war:
horses are armed for war, war is what this herd
threatens.
Yet those same creatures one day can be yoked to a
chariot,
and once yoked will suffer the bridle in harmony:
there’s also hope of peace.” Then we pray to the
sacred power
of Pallas, of the clashing weapons, first to receive
our cheers,
and clothed in Phrygian robes we veiled our heads
before the altar,
and following the urgent command Helenus had given,
we duly made burnt offerings to Argive Juno as
ordered.
BkIII:548-587
The Approach to Sicily
Without delay, as soon as our vows are fully paid,
we haul on the ends of our canvas-shrouded yard-arms,
and leave the home of the Greek race, and the fields
we mistrust.
Then Tarentum’s bay is seen, Hercules’s city if the
tale is true:
Lacinian Juno’s temple rises against it, Caulon’s
fortress,
and Scylaceum’s shore of shipwreck.
Then far off Sicilian Etna appears from the waves,
and we hear the loud roar of the sea, and the distant
tremor of the rocks, and the broken murmurs of the
shore,
the shallows boil, and sand mixes with the flood.
Then my father, Anchises, said: “This must be
Charybdis:
these are the cliffs, these are the horrendous rocks
Helenus foretold.
Pull away, O comrades, and stand to the oars
together.”
They do no less than they’re asked, and Palinurus is
the first
to heave his groaning ship into the portside waves:
all our company seek port with oars and sail.
We climb to heaven on the curving flood, and again
sink down with the withdrawing waves to the depths of
Hades.
The cliffs boom three times in their rocky caves,
three times we see the spray burst, and the dripping
stars.
Then the wind and sunlight desert weary men,
and not knowing the way we drift to the Cyclopes’s
shore.
There’s a harbour, itself large and untroubled by the
passing winds,
but Etna rumbles nearby with fearsome avalanches,
now it spews black clouds into the sky, smoking,
with pitch-black turbulence, and glowing ashes,
and throws up balls of flame, licking the stars:
now it hurls high the rocks it vomits, and the
mountain’s
torn entrails, and gathers molten lava together in the
air
with a roar, boiling from its lowest depths.
The tale is that Enceladus’s body, scorched by the
lightning-bolt,
is buried by that mass, and piled above him, mighty
Etna
breathes flames from its riven furnaces,
and as often as he turns his weary flank, all Sicily
quakes and rumbles, and clouds the sky with smoke.
That night we hide in the woods, enduring the dreadful
shocks,
unable to see what the cause of the sound is,
since there are no heavenly fires, no bright pole
in the starry firmament, but clouds in a darkened sky,
and the dead of night holds the moon in shroud.
BkIII:588-654
Achaemenides
Now the next day was breaking with the first light of
dawn,
and Aurora had dispersed the moist shadows from the
sky,
when suddenly the strange form of an unknown man came
out
of the woods, exhausted by the last pangs of hunger,
pitifully dressed, and stretched his hands in
supplication
towards the shore. We looked back. Vile with filth,
his beard uncut,
his clothing fastened together with thorns: but
otherwise a Greek,
once sent to Troy in his country’s armour.
When he saw the Dardan clothes and Trojan weapons, far
off,
he hesitated a moment, frightened at the sight,
and checked his steps: then ran headlong to the beach,
with tears and prayers: “The stars be my witness,
the gods, the light in the life-giving sky, Trojans,
take me with you: carry me to any country whatsoever,
that will be fine by me. I know I’m from one of the
Greek ships,
and I confess that I made war against Trojan gods,
if my crime is so great an injury to you, scatter me
over the waves for it, or drown me in the vast ocean:
if I die I’ll delight in dying at the hands of men.”
He spoke and clung to my knees, embracing them
and grovelling there. We urged him to say who he was,
born of what blood, then to say what fate pursued him.
Without much delay, my father Anchises himself gave
the young man his hand, lifting his spirits by this
ready trust.
At last he set his fears aside and told us:
“I’m from the land of Ithaca, a companion of unlucky
Ulysses,
Achaemenides by name, and, my father Adamastus being
poor,
(I wish fate had kept me so!) I set out for Troy.
My comrades left me here in the Cyclops’ vast cave,
forgetting me, as they hurriedly left that grim
threshold. It’s a house of blood and gory feasts,
vast and dark inside. He himself is gigantic, striking
against
the high stars – gods, remove plagues like that from
the earth! –
not pleasant to look at, affable to no one.
He eats the dark blood and flesh of wretched men.
I saw myself how he seized two of our number in his
huge hands,
and reclining in the centre of the cave, broke them
on the rock, so the threshold, drenched, swam with
blood:
I saw how he gnawed their limbs, dripping with dark
clots
of gore, and the still-warm bodies quivered in his
jaws.
Yet he did not go unpunished: Ulysses didn’t suffer
it,
nor did the Ithacan forget himself in a crisis.
As soon as the Cyclops, full of flesh and sated with
wine,
relaxed his neck, and lay, huge in size, across the
cave,
drooling gore and blood and wine-drenched fragments
in his sleep, we prayed to the great gods, and our
roles fixed,
surrounded him on all sides, and stabbed his one huge
eye,
solitary, and half-hidden under his savage brow,
like a round Greek shield, or the sun-disc of Phoebus,
with a sharpened stake: and so we joyfully avenged
the spirits of our friends. But fly from here,
wretched men,
and cut your mooring ropes. Since, like Polyphemus,
who pens
woolly flocks in the rocky cave, and milks their
udders, there are
a hundred other appalling Cyclopes, the same in shape
and size,
everywhere inhabiting the curved bay, and wandering
the hills.
The moon’s horns have filled with light three times
now, while I
have been dragging my life out in the woods, among the
lairs
and secret haunts of wild creatures, watching the huge
Cyclopes
from the cliffs, trembling at their voices and the
sound of their feet.
The branches yield a miserable supply of fruits and
stony cornelian
cherries, and the grasses, torn up by their roots,
feed me.
Watching for everything, I saw, for the first time,
this fleet
approaching shore. Whatever might happen, I
surrendered myself
to you: it’s enough for me to have escaped that wicked
people.
I’d rather you took this life of mine by any death
whatsoever.”
BkIII:655-691
Polyphemus
He’d barely spoken, when we saw the shepherd
Polyphemus
himself, moving his mountainous bulk on the hillside
among the flocks, and heading for the familiar shore,
a fearful monster, vast and shapeless, robbed of the
light.
A lopped pine-trunk in his hand steadied and guided
his steps: his fleecy sheep accompanied him:
his sole delight and the solace for his evils.
As soon as he came to the sea and reached the deep
water,
he washed away the blood oozing from the gouged
eye-socket,
groaning and gnashing his teeth. Then he walked
through
the depths of the waves, without the tide wetting his
vast thighs.
Anxiously we hurried our departure from there,
accepting
the worthy suppliant on board, and cutting the cable
in silence:
then leaning into our oars, we vied in sweeping the
sea.
He heard, and bent his course towards the sound of
splashing.
But when he was denied the power to set hands on us,
and unable to counter the force of the Ionian waves,
in pursuit,
he raised a mighty shout, at which the sea and all the
waves
shook, and the land of Italy was frightened far
inland,
and Etna bellowed from its winding caverns, but the
tribe
of Cyclopes, roused from their woods and high
mountains,
rushed to the harbour, and crowded the shore.
We saw them standing there, impotently, wild-eyed,
the Aetnean brotherhood, heads towering into the sky,
a fearsome gathering: like tall oaks rooted on a
summit,
or cone-bearing cypresses, in Jove’s high wood or
Diana’s grove.
Acute fear drove us on to pay out the ropes on
whatever tack
and spread our sails to any favourable wind.
Helenus’s orders warned against taking a course
between
Scylla and Charybdis, a hair’s breadth from death
on either side: we decided to beat back again.
When, behold, a northerly arrived from the narrow
headland of Pelorus: I sailed past the natural rock
mouth
of the Pantagias, Megara’s bay, and low-lying Thapsus.
Such were the shores Achaemenides, the friend of
unlucky Ulysses,
showed me, sailing his wandering journey again, in
reverse.
BkIII:692-718
The Death of Anchises
An island lies over against wave-washed Plemyrium,
stretched across a Sicilian bay: named Ortygia by men
of old.
The story goes that Alpheus, a river of Elis, forced
a hidden path here under the sea, and merges
with the Sicilian waters of your fountain Arethusa.
As commanded we worshipped the great gods of this
land,
and from there I passed marshy Helorus’s marvellously
rich soil.
Next we passed the tall reefs and jutting rocks of
Pachynus,
and Camerina appeared in the distance, granted
immoveable, by prophecy, and the Geloan plains,
and Gela named after its savage river.
Then steep Acragas, once the breeder of brave horses,
showed its mighty ramparts in the distance:
and granted the wind, I left palmy Selinus, and passed
the tricky shallows of Lilybaeum with their blind
reefs.
Next the harbour of Drepanum, and its joyless shore,
received me. Here, alas, I lost my father, Anchises,
my comfort in every trouble and misfortune, I, who’d
been driven by so many ocean storms: here you left me,
weary, best of fathers, saved from so many dangers in
vain!
Helenus, the seer, did not prophesy this grief of
mine,
when he warned me of many horrors, nor did grim
Celaeno.
This was my last trouble, this the end of my long
journey:
leaving there, the god drove me to your shores.’
So our ancestor Aeneas, as all listened to one man,
recounted divine fate, and described his journey.
At last he stopped, and making an end here, rested.
BkIV:1-53
Dido and Anna Discuss Aeneas
But the queen, wounded long since by intense love,
feeds the hurt with her life-blood, weakened by hidden
fire.
The hero’s courage often returns to mind, and the
nobility
of his race: his features and his words cling fixedly
to her heart,
and love will not grant restful calm to her body.
The new day’s Dawn was lighting the earth with
Phoebus’s
brightness, and dispelling the dew-wet shadows from
the sky,
when she spoke ecstatically to her sister, her kindred
spirit:
“Anna, sister, how my dreams terrify me with
anxieties!
Who is this strange guest who has entered our house,
with what boldness he speaks, how resolute in mind and
warfare!
Truly I think – and it’s no idle saying – that he’s
born of a goddess.
Fear reveals the ignoble spirit. Alas! What
misfortunes test him!
What battles he spoke of, that he has undergone!
If my mind was not set, fixedly and immovably,
never to join myself with any man in the bonds of
marriage,
because first-love betrayed me, cheated me through
dying:
if I were not wearied by marriage and bridal-beds,
perhaps I might succumb to this one temptation.
Anna, yes I confess, since my poor husband Sychaeus’s
death
when the altars were blood-stained by my murderous
brother,
he’s the only man who’s stirred my senses, troubled my
wavering mind. I know the traces of the ancient flame.
But I pray rather that earth might gape wide for me,
to its depths,
or the all-powerful father hurl me with his
lightning-bolt
down to the shadows, to the pale ghosts, and deepest
night
of Erebus, before I violate you, Honour, or break your
laws.
He who first took me to himself has stolen my love:
let him keep it with him, and guard it in his grave.”
So saying her breast swelled with her rising tears.
Anna replied: “O you, who are more beloved to your
sister
than the light, will you wear your whole youth away
in loneliness and grief, and not know Venus’s sweet
gifts
or her children? Do you think that ashes or sepulchral
spirits care?
Granted that in Libya or Tyre before it, no suitor
ever
dissuaded you from sorrowing: and Iarbas and the other
lords
whom the African soil, rich in fame, bears, were scorned:
will you still struggle against a love that pleases?
Do you not recall to mind in whose fields you settled?
Here Gaetulian cities, a people unsurpassed in battle,
unbridled Numidians, and inhospitable Syrtis, surround
you:
there, a region of dry desert, with Barcaeans raging
around.
And what of your brother’s threats, and war with Tyre
imminent?
The Trojan ships made their way here with the wind,
with gods indeed helping them I think, and with Juno’s
favour.
What a city you’ll see here, sister, what a kingdom
rise,
with such a husband! With a Trojan army marching with
us,
with what great actions Punic glory will soar!
Only ask the gods for their help, and, propitiating
them
with sacrifice, indulge your guest, spin reasons for
delay,
while winter, and stormy Orion, rage at sea,
while the ships are damaged, and the skies are
hostile.”
BkIV:54-89
Dido in Love
By saying this she inflames the queen’s burning heart
with love
and raises hopes in her anxious mind, and weakens her
sense
of shame. First they visit the shrines and ask for
grace at the altars:
they sacrifice chosen animals according to the rites,
to Ceres, the law-maker, and Phoebus, and father
Lycaeus,
and to Juno above all, in whose care are the marriage
ties:
Dido herself, supremely lovely, holding the cup in her
hand,
pours the libation between the horns of a white heifer
or walks to the rich altars, before the face of the
gods,
celebrates the day with gifts, and gazes into the
opened
chests of victims, and reads the living entrails.
Ah, the unknowing minds of seers! What use are prayers
or shrines to the impassioned? Meanwhile her tender
marrow
is aflame, and a silent wound is alive in her breast.
Wretched Dido burns, and wanders frenzied through the
city,
like an unwary deer struck by an arrow, that a
shepherd hunting
with his bow has fired at from a distance, in the
Cretan woods,
leaving the winged steel in her, without knowing.
She runs through the woods and glades of Dicte:
the lethal shaft hangs in her side.
Now she leads Aeneas with her round the walls
showing her Sidonian wealth and the city she’s built:
she begins to speak, and stops in mid-flow:
now she longs for the banquet again as day wanes,
yearning madly to hear about the Trojan adventures
once more
and hangs once more on the speaker’s lips.
Then when they have departed, and the moon in turn
has quenched her light and the setting constellations
urge sleep,
she grieves, alone in the empty hall, and lies on the
couch
he left. Absent she hears him absent, sees him,
or hugs Ascanius on her lap, taken with this image
of his father, so as to deceive her silent passion.
The towers she started no longer rise, the young men
no longer
carry out their drill, or work on the harbour and the
battlements
for defence in war: the interrupted work is left
hanging,
the huge threatening walls, the sky-reaching cranes.
BkIV:90-128
Juno and Venus
As soon as Juno, Jupiter’s beloved wife, saw clearly
that Dido
was gripped by such heart-sickness, and her reputation
no obstacle to love, she spoke to Venus in these
words:
“You and that son of yours, certainly take the prize,
and plenty
of spoils: a great and memorable show of divine power,
whereby one woman’s trapped by the tricks of two gods.
But the truth’s not escaped me, you’ve always held the
halls
of high Carthage under suspicion, afraid of my city’s
defences.
But where can that end? Why such rivalry, now?
Why don’t we work on eternal peace instead, and a
wedding pact?
You’ve achieved all that your mind was set on:
Dido’s burning with passion, and she’s drawn the
madness
into her very bones. Let’s rule these people together
with equal sway: let her be slave to a Trojan husband,
and entrust her Tyrians to your hand, as the dowry.”
Venus began the reply to her like this (since she knew
she’d spoken with deceit in her mind to divert the
empire
from Italy’s shores to Libya’s): “Who’d be mad enough
to refuse such an offer or choose to make war on you,
so long as fate follows up what you say with action?
But fortune makes me uncertain, as to whether Jupiter
wants
a single city for Tyrians and Trojan exiles, and
approves
the mixing of races and their joining in league
together.
You’re his wife: you can test his intent by asking.
Do it: I’ll follow.” Then royal Juno replied like
this:
“That task’s mine. Now listen and I’ll tell you
briefly
how the purpose at hand can be achieved.
Aeneas and poor Dido plan to go hunting together
in the woods, when the sun first shows tomorrow’s
dawn, and reveals the world in his rays.
While the lines are beating, and closing the thickets
with nets,
I’ll pour down dark rain mixed with hail from the sky,
and rouse the whole heavens with my thunder.
They’ll scatter, and be lost in the dark of night:
Dido and the Trojan leader will reach the same cave.
I’ll be there, and if I’m assured of your good will,
I’ll join them firmly in marriage, and speak for her
as his own:
this will be their wedding-night.” Not opposed to what
she wanted,
Venus agreed, and smiled to herself at the deceit
she’d found.
BkIV:129-172
The Hunt and the Cave
Meanwhile Dawn surges up and leaves the ocean.
Once she has risen, the chosen men pour from the
gates:
Massylian horsemen ride out, with wide-meshed nets,
snares, broad-headed hunting spears, and a pack
of keen-scented hounds. The queen lingers in her
rooms,
while Punic princes wait at the threshold: her horse
stands there,
bright in purple and gold, and champs fiercely at the
foaming bit.
At last she appears, with a great crowd around her,
dressed in a Sidonian robe with an embroidered hem.
Her quiver’s of gold, her hair knotted with gold,
a golden brooch fastens her purple tunic.
Her Trojan friends and joyful Iulus are with her:
Aeneas himself, the most handsome of them all,
moves forward and joins his friendly troop with hers.
Like Apollo, leaving behind the Lycian winter,
and the streams of Xanthus, and visiting his mother’s
Delos,
to renew the dancing, Cretans and Dryopes and painted
Agathyrsians, mingling around his altars, shouting:
he himself striding over the ridges of Cynthus,
his hair dressed with tender leaves, and clasped with
gold,
the weapons rattling on his shoulder: so Aeneas walks,
as lightly, beauty like the god’s shining from his
noble face.
When they reach the mountain heights and pathless
haunts,
see the wild goats, disturbed on their stony summits,
course down the slopes: in another place deer speed
over the open field, massing together in a fleeing
herd
among clouds of dust, leaving the hillsides behind.
But the young Ascanius among the valleys, delights
in his fiery horse, passing this rider and that at a
gallop, hoping
that amongst these harmless creatures a boar, with
foaming mouth,
might answer his prayers, or a tawny lion, down from
the mountain.
Meanwhile the sky becomes filled with a great
rumbling:
rain mixed with hail follows, and the Tyrian company
and the Trojan men, with Venus’s Dardan grandson,
scatter here and there through the fields, in their
fear,
seeking shelter: torrents stream down from the hills.
Dido and the Trojan leader reach the very same cave.
Primeval Earth and Juno of the Nuptials give their
signal:
lightning flashes, the heavens are party to their
union,
and the Nymphs howl on the mountain heights.
That first day is the source of misfortune and death.
Dido’s no longer troubled by appearances or
reputation,
she no longer thinks of a secret affair: she calls it
marriage:
and with that name disguises her sin.
BkIV:173-197
Rumour Reaches Iarbas
Rumour raced at once through Libya’s great cities,
Rumour, compared with whom no other is as swift.
She flourishes by speed, and gains strength as she
goes:
first limited by fear, she soon reaches into the sky,
walks on the ground, and hides her head in the clouds.
Earth, incited to anger against the gods, so they say,
bore her last, a monster, vast and terrible,
fleet-winged
and swift-footed, sister to Coeus and Enceladus,
who for every feather on her body has as many
watchful eyes below (marvellous to tell), as many
tongues speaking, as many listening ears.
She flies, screeching, by night through the shadows
between earth and sky, never closing her eyelids
in sweet sleep: by day she sits on guard on tall
roof-tops
or high towers, and scares great cities, as tenacious
of lies and evil, as she is messenger of truth.
Now in delight she filled the ears of the nations
with endless gossip, singing fact and fiction alike:
Aeneas has come, born of Trojan blood, a man whom
lovely Dido deigns to unite with: now they’re spending
the whole winter together in indulgence, forgetting
their royalty, trapped by shameless passion.
The vile goddess spread this here and there on men’s
lips.
Immediately she slanted her course towards King Iarbas
and inflamed his mind with words and fuelled his
anger.
BkIV:198-218
Iarbas Prays to Jupiter
He, a son of Jupiter Ammon, by a raped Garamantian
Nymph,
had set up a hundred great temples, a hundred altars,
to the god,
in his broad kingdom, and sanctified ever-living
fires, the gods’
eternal guardians: the floors were soaked with
sacrificial blood,
and the thresholds flowery with mingled garlands.
They say he often begged Jove humbly with upraised
hands,
in front of the altars, among the divine powers,
maddened in spirit and set on fire by bitter rumour:
“All-powerful Jupiter, to whom the Moors, on their
embroidered
divans, banqueting, now pour a Bacchic offering,
do you see this? Do we shudder in vain when you hurl
your lightning bolts, father, and are those idle fires
in the clouds
that terrify our minds, and flash among the empty
rumblings?
A woman, wandering within my borders, who paid to
found
a little town, and to whom we granted coastal lands
to plough, to hold in tenure, scorns marriage with me,
and takes Aeneas into her country as its lord.
And now like some Paris, with his pack of eunuchs,
a Phrygian cap, tied under his chin, on his greasy
hair,
he’s master of what he’s snatched: while I bring gifts
indeed
to temples, said to be yours, and cherish your empty
reputation.
BkIV:219-278
Jupiter Sends Mercury to Aeneas
As he gripped the altar, and prayed in this way,
the All-powerful one listened, and turned his gaze
towards
the royal city, and the lovers forgetful of their true
reputation.
Then he spoke to Mercury and commanded him so:
“Off you go, my son, call the winds and glide on your
wings,
and talk to the Trojan leader who malingers in Tyrian
Carthage
now, and gives no thought to the cities the fates will
grant him,
and carry my words there on the quick breeze.
This is not what his loveliest of mothers suggested to
me,
nor why she rescued him twice from Greek armies:
he was to be one who’d rule Italy, pregnant with
empire,
and crying out for war, he’d produce a people of
Teucer’s
high blood, and bring the whole world under the rule
of law.
If the glory of such things doesn’t inflame him,
and he doesn’t exert himself for his own honour,
does he begrudge the citadels of Rome to Ascanius?
What does he plan? With what hopes does he stay
among alien people, forgetting Ausonia and the
Lavinian fields?
Let him sail: that’s it in total, let that be my
message.”
He finished speaking. The god prepared to obey his
great
father’s order, and first fastened the golden sandals
to his feet
that carry him high on the wing over land and sea,
like the storm.
Then he took up his wand: he calls pale ghosts from
Orcus
with it, sending others down to grim Tartarus,
gives and takes away sleep, and opens the eyes of the
dead.
Relying on it, he drove the winds, and flew through
the stormy clouds. Now in his flight he saw the steep
flanks
and the summit of strong Atlas, who holds the heavens
on his head, Atlas, whose pine-covered crown is always
wreathed
in dark clouds and lashed by the wind and rain:
fallen snow clothes his shoulders: while rivers fall
from his ancient chin, and his rough beard bristles
with ice.
There Cyllenian Mercury first halted, balanced on
level wings:
from there, he threw his whole body headlong
towards the waves, like a bird that flies low close
to the sea, round the coasts and the rocks rich in
fish.
So the Cyllenian-born flew between heaven and earth
to Libya’s sandy shore, cutting the winds, coming
from Atlas, his mother Maia’s father.
As soon as he reached the builders’ huts, on his
winged feet,
he saw Aeneas establishing towers and altering roofs.
His sword was starred with tawny jasper,
and the cloak that hung from his shoulder blazed
with Tyrian purple, a gift that rich Dido had made,
weaving the cloth with golden thread.
Mercury challenged him at once: “For love of a wife
are you now building the foundations of high Carthage
and a pleasing city? Alas, forgetful of your kingdom
and fate!
The king of the gods himself, who bends heaven and
earth
to his will, has sent me down to you from bright
Olympus:
he commanded me himself to carry these words through
the swift breezes. What do you plan? With what hopes
do you waste idle hours in Libya’s lands? If you’re
not stirred
by the glory of destiny, and won’t exert yourself for your
own
fame, think of your growing Ascanius, and the
expectations
of him, as Iulus your heir, to whom will be owed the
kingdom
of Italy, and the Roman lands.” So Mercury spoke,
and, while speaking, vanished from mortal eyes,
and melted into thin air far from their sight.
BkIV:279-330
Dido Accuses Aeneas
Aeneas, stupefied at the vision, was struck dumb,
and his hair rose in terror, and his voice stuck in
his throat.
He was eager to be gone, in flight, and leave that
sweet land,
shocked by the warning and the divine command.
Alas! What to do? With what speech dare he tackle
the love-sick queen? What opening words should he
choose?
And he cast his mind back and forth swiftly,
considered the issue from every aspect, and turned it every
way.
This seemed the best decision, given the alternatives:
he called Mnestheus, Sergestus and brave Serestus,
telling them to fit out the fleet in silence, gather
the men
on the shore, ready the ships’ tackle, and hide the
reason
for these changes of plan. He in the meantime, since
the excellent Dido knew nothing, and would not expect
the breaking off of such a love, would seek an
approach,
the tenderest moment to speak, and a favourable means.
They all gladly obeyed his command at once, and did
his bidding.
But the queen sensed his tricks (who can deceive a
lover?)
and was first to anticipate future events, fearful
even of safety.
That same impious Rumour brought her madness:
they are fitting out the fleet, and planning a
journey.
Her mind weakened, she raves, and, on fire, runs wild
through the city: like a Maenad, thrilled by the
shaken emblems
of the god, when the biennial festival rouses her,
and, hearing the Bacchic cry, Mount Cithaeron summons her by night with its
noise.
Of her own accord she finally reproaches Aeneas in
these words:
“Faithless one, did you really think you could hide
such wickedness, and vanish from my land in silence?
Will my love not hold you, nor the pledge I once gave
you,
nor the promise that Dido will die a cruel death?
Even in winter do you labour over your ships, cruel
one,
so as to sail the high seas at the height of the
northern gales?
Why? If you were not seeking foreign lands and unknown
settlements, but ancient Troy still stood, would Troy
be sought out by your ships in wave-torn seas?
Is it me you run from? I beg you, by these tears, by
your own
right hand (since I’ve left myself no other recourse
in my misery),
by our union, by the marriage we have begun,
if ever I deserved well of you, or anything of me
was sweet to you, pity this ruined house, and if
there is any room left for prayer, change your mind.
The Libyan peoples and Numidian rulers hate me because
of you:
my Tyrians are hostile: because of you all shame too
is lost,
the reputation I had, by which alone I might reach the
stars.
My guest, since that’s all that is left me from the
name of husband,
to whom do you relinquish me, a dying woman?
Why do I stay? Until Pygmalion, my brother, destroys
the city, or Iarbas the Gaetulian takes me captive?
If I’d at least conceived a child of yours
before you fled, if a little Aeneas were playing
about my halls, whose face might still recall yours,
I’d not feel myself so utterly deceived and forsaken.”
BkIV:331-361
Aeneas Justifies Himself
She had spoken. He set his gaze firmly on Jupiter’s
warnings, and hid his pain steadfastly in his heart.
He replied briefly at last: “O queen, I will never
deny
that you deserve the most that can be spelt out in
speech,
nor will I regret my thoughts of you, Elissa,
while memory itself is mine, and breath controls these
limbs.
I’ll speak about the reality a little. I did not
expect to conceal
my departure by stealth (don’t think that), nor have I
ever
held the marriage torch, or entered into that pact.
If the fates had allowed me to live my life under my
own
auspices, and attend to my own concerns as I wished,
I should first have cared for the city of Troy and the
sweet relics
of my family, Priam’s high roofs would remain, and I’d
have
recreated Pergama, with my own hands, for the
defeated.
But now it is Italy that Apollo of Grynium,
Italy, that the Lycian oracles, order me to take:
that is my desire, that is my country. If the turrets
of Carthage
and the sight of your Libyan city occupy you, a
Phoenician,
why then begrudge the Trojans their settling of
Ausonia’s lands?
It is right for us too to search out a foreign
kingdom.
As often as night cloaks the earth with dew-wet
shadows,
as often as the burning constellations rise, the
troubled image
of my father Anchises warns and terrifies me in dream:
about my son Ascanius and the wrong to so dear a
person,
whom I cheat of a Hesperian kingdom, and pre-destined
fields.
Now even the messenger of the gods, sent by Jupiter
himself,
(I swear it on both our heads), has brought the
command
on the swift breeze: I saw the god himself in broad
daylight
enter the city and these very ears drank of his words.
Stop rousing yourself and me with your complaints.
I do not take course for Italy of my own free will.”
BkIV:362-392
Dido’s Reply
As he was speaking she gazed at him with hostility,
casting her eyes here and there, considering the whole
man
with a silent stare, and then, incensed, she spoke:
“Deceiver, your mother was no goddess, nor was
Dardanus
the father of your race: harsh Caucasus engendered you
on the rough crags, and Hyrcanian tigers nursed you.
Why pretend now, or restrain myself waiting for
something worse?
Did he groan at my weeping? Did he look at me?
Did he shed tears in defeat, or pity his lover?
What is there to say after this? Now neither greatest
Juno, indeed,
nor Jupiter, son of Saturn, are gazing at this with
friendly eyes.
Nowhere is truth safe. I welcomed him as a castaway on
the shore,
a beggar, and foolishly gave away a part of my
kingdom:
I saved his lost fleet, and his friends from death.
Ah! Driven by the Furies, I burn: now prophetic
Apollo,
now the Lycian oracles, now even a divine messenger
sent
by Jove himself carries his orders through the air.
This is the work of the gods indeed, this is a concern
to trouble
their calm. I do not hold you back, or refute your
words:
go, seek Italy on the winds, find your kingdom over
the waves.
Yet if the virtuous gods have power, I hope that you
will drain the cup of suffering among the reefs, and
call out Dido’s
name again and again. Absent, I’ll follow you with
dark fires,
and when icy death has divided my soul and body, my
ghost
will be present everywhere. Cruel one, you’ll be
punished.
I’ll hear of it: that news will reach me in the depths
of Hades.”
Saying this, she broke off her speech mid-flight, and
fled
the light in pain, turning from his eyes, and going,
leaving him fearful and hesitant, ready to say more.
Her servants received her and carried her failing body
to her marble chamber, and laid her on her bed.
BkIV:393-449
Aeneas Departs
But dutiful Aeneas, though he desired to ease her
sadness
by comforting her and to turn aside pain with words,
still,
with much sighing, and a heart shaken by the strength
of her love,
followed the divine command, and returned to the
fleet.
Then the Trojans truly set to work and launched the
tall ships
all along the shore. They floated the resinous keels,
and ready for flight, they brought leafy branches
and untrimmed trunks, from the woods, as oars.
You could see them hurrying and moving from every part
of the city. Like ants that plunder a vast heap of
grain,
and store it in their nest, mindful of winter: a dark
column
goes through the fields, and they carry their spoils
along a narrow track through the grass: some heave
with their shoulders against a large seed, and push,
others tighten
the ranks and punish delay, the whole path’s alive
with work.
What were your feelings Dido at such sights, what
sighs
did you give, watching the shore from the heights
of the citadel, everywhere alive, and seeing the whole
sea, before your eyes, confused with such cries!
Cruel Love, to what do you not drive the human heart:
to burst into tears once more, to see once more if he
can
be compelled by prayers, to humbly submit to love,
lest she leave anything untried, dying in vain.
“Anna, you see them scurrying all round the shore:
they’ve come from everywhere: the canvas already
invites
the breeze, and the sailors, delighted, have set
garlands
on the sterns. If I was able to foresee this great
grief,
sister, then I’ll be able to endure it too. Yet still
do one thing
for me in my misery, Anna: since the deceiver
cultivated
only you, even trusting you with his private thoughts:
and only you know the time to approach the man easily.
Go, sister, and speak humbly to my proud enemy.
I never took the oath, with the Greeks at Aulis,
to destroy the Trojan race, or sent a fleet to
Pergama,
or disturbed the ashes and ghost of his father
Anchises:
why does he pitilessly deny my words access to his
hearing?
Where does he run to? Let him give his poor lover this
last gift:
let him wait for an easy voyage and favourable winds.
I don’t beg now for our former tie, that he has
betrayed,
nor that he give up his beautiful Latium, and abandon
his kingdom: I ask for insubstantial time: peace and
space
for my passion, while fate teaches my beaten spirit to
grieve.
I beg for this last favour (pity your sister):
when he has granted it me, I’ll repay all by dying.”
Such are the prayers she made, and such are those
her unhappy sister carried and re-carried. But he was
not
moved by tears, and listened to no words receptively:
Fate barred the way, and a god sealed the hero’s
gentle hearing.
As when northerly blasts from the Alps blowing here
and there
vie together to uproot an oak tree, tough with the
strength of years:
there’s a creak, and the trunk quivers and the topmost
leaves
strew the ground: but it clings to the rocks, and its
roots
stretch as far down to Tartarus as its crown does
towards
the heavens: so the hero was buffeted by endless pleas
from this side and that, and felt the pain in his
noble heart.
His purpose remained fixed: tears fell uselessly.
BkIV:450-503
Dido Resolves to Die
Then the unhappy Dido, truly appalled by her fate,
prayed for death: she was weary of gazing at the vault
of heaven.
And that she might complete her purpose, and
relinquish the light
more readily, when she placed her offerings on the
altar alight
with incense, she saw (terrible to speak of!) the holy
water blacken,
and the wine she had poured change to vile blood.
She spoke of this vision to no one, not even her
sister.
There was a marble shrine to her former husband in the
palace,
that she’d decked out, also, with marvellous beauty,
with snow-white fleeces, and festive greenery:
from it she seemed to hear voices and her husband’s
words
calling her, when dark night gripped the earth:
and the lonely owl on the roofs often grieved
with ill-omened cries, drawing out its long call in a
lament:
and many a prophecy of the ancient seers terrified her
with its dreadful warning. Harsh Aeneas himself
persecuted
her, in her crazed sleep: always she was forsaken,
alone with
herself, always she seemed to be travelling
companionless on some
long journey, seeking her Tyrian people in a deserted
landscape:
like Pentheus, deranged, seeing the Furies file past,
and twin suns and a twin Thebes revealed to view,
or like Agamemnon’s son Orestes driven across the
stage when he
flees his mother’s ghost armed with firebrands and black
snakes,
while the avenging Furies crouch on the threshold.
So that when, overcome by anguish, she harboured the
madness,
and determined on death, she debated with herself over
the time
and the method, and going to her sorrowful sister with
a face
that concealed her intent, calm, with hope on her
brow, said:
“Sister, I’ve found a way (rejoice with your sister)
that will return him to me, or free me from loving
him.
Near the ends of the Ocean and where the sun sets
Ethiopia lies, the furthest of lands, where Atlas,
mightiest of all, turns the sky set with shining
stars:
I’ve been told of a priestess, of Massylian race,
there,
a keeper of the temple of the Hesperides, who gave
the dragon its food, and guarded the holy branches of
the tree,
scattering the honeydew and sleep-inducing poppies.
With her incantations she promises to set free
what hearts she wishes, but bring cruel pain to
others:
to stop the rivers flowing, and turn back the stars:
she wakes nocturnal Spirits: you’ll see earth yawn
under your feet, and the ash trees march from the
hills.
You, and the gods, and your sweet life, are witness,
dear sister, that I arm myself with magic arts
unwillingly.
Build a pyre, secretly, in an inner courtyard, open to
the sky,
and place the weapons on it which that impious man
left
hanging in my room, and the clothes, and the bridal
bed
that undid me: I want to destroy all memories
of that wicked man, and the priestess commends it.”
Saying this she fell silent: at the same time a pallor
spread
over her face. Anna did not yet realise that her
sister
was disguising her own funeral with these strange
rites,
her mind could not conceive of such intensity,
and she feared nothing more serious than when
Sychaeus died. So she prepared what was demanded.
BkIV:504-553
Dido Laments
But when the pyre of cut pine and oak was raised high,
in an innermost court open to the sky, the queen
hung the place with garlands, and wreathed it
with funereal foliage: she laid his sword and clothes
and picture on the bed, not unmindful of the ending.
Altars stand round about, and the priestess, with
loosened hair,
intoned the names of three hundred gods, of Erebus,
Chaos,
and the triple Hecate, the three faces of virgin
Diana.
And she sprinkled water signifying the founts of
Avernus:
there were herbs too acquired by moonlight, cut
with a bronze sickle, moist with the milk of dark
venom:
and a caul acquired by tearing it from a newborn
colt’s brow,
forestalling the mother’s love. She herself, near the
altars,
with sacred grain in purified hands, one foot free of
constraint,
her clothing loosened, called on the gods to witness
her coming death, and on the stars conscious of fate:
then she prayed to whatever just and attentive power
there might be, that cares for unrequited lovers.
It was night, and everywhere weary creatures were
enjoying
peaceful sleep, the woods and the savage waves were
resting,
while stars wheeled midway in their gliding orbit,
while all the fields were still, and beasts and
colourful birds,
those that live on wide scattered lakes, and those
that live
in rough country among the thorn-bushes, were sunk in
sleep
in the silent night. But not the Phoenician, unhappy
in spirit,
she did not relax in sleep, or receive the darkness
into her eyes
and breast: her cares redoubled, and passion, alive
once more,
raged, and she swelled with a great tide of anger.
So she began in this way turning it over alone in her
heart:
“See, what can I do? Be mocked trying my former
suitors,
seeking marriage humbly with Numidians whom I
have already disdained so many times as husbands?
Shall I follow the Trojan fleet then and that
Teucrian’s
every whim? Because they might delight in having been
helped by my previous aid, or because gratitude
for past deeds might remain truly fixed in their
memories?
Indeed who, given I wanted to, would let me, or would
take
one they hate on board their proud ships? Ah, lost
girl,
do you not know or feel yet the treachery of
Laomedon’s race?
What then? Shall I go alone, accompanying triumphant
sailors?
Or with all my band of Tyrians clustered round me?
Shall I again drive my men to sea in pursuit, those
whom I could barely tear away from their Sidonian
city,
and order them to spread their sails to the wind?
Rather die, as you deserve, and turn away sorrow with
steel.
You, my sister, conquered by my tears, in my madness,
you
first burdened me with these ills, and exposed me to
my enemy.
I was not allowed to pass my life without blame, free
of marriage,
in the manner of some wild creature, never knowing
such pain:
I have not kept the vow I made to Sychaeus’s ashes.”
Such was the lament that burst from her heart.
BkIV:554-583
Mercury Visits Aeneas Again
Now that everything was ready, and he was resolved on
going,
Aeneas was snatching some sleep, on the ship’s high
stern.
That vision appeared again in dream admonishing him,
similar to Mercury in every way, voice and colouring,
golden hair, and youth’s graceful limbs:
“Son of the Goddess, can you consider sleep in this
disaster,
can’t you see the danger of it that surrounds you,
madman
or hear the favourable west winds blowing?
Determined to die, she broods on mortal deceit and
sin,
and is tossed about on anger’s volatile flood.
Won’t you flee from here, in haste, while you can
hasten?
Soon you’ll see the water crowded with ships,
cruel firebrands burning, soon the shore will rage
with flame,
if the Dawn finds you lingering in these lands. Come,
now,
end your delay! Woman is ever fickle and changeable.”
So he spoke, and blended with night’s darkness.
Then Aeneas, terrified indeed by the sudden
apparition,
roused his body from sleep, and called to his friends:
“ Quick, men, awake, and man the rowing-benches: run
and loosen the sails. Know that a god, sent from the
heavens,
urges us again to speed our flight, and cut the
twisted hawsers.
We follow you, whoever you may be, sacred among the
gods,
and gladly obey your commands once more. Oh, be with
us,
calm one, help us, and show stars favourable to us in the
sky.”
He spoke, and snatched his shining sword from its
sheath,
and struck the cable with the naked blade. All were
possessed
at once with the same ardour: They snatched up their
goods,
and ran: abandoning the shore: the water was clothed
with ships:
setting to, they churned the foam and swept the blue
waves.
BkIV:584-629
Dido’s Curse
And now, at dawn, Aurora, leaving Tithonus’s saffron
bed,
was scattering fresh daylight over the earth.
As soon as the queen saw the day whiten, from her
tower,
and the fleet sailing off under full canvas, and
realised
the shore and harbour were empty of oarsmen, she
struck her lovely breast three or four times with her
hand,
and tearing at her golden hair, said: “Ah, Jupiter, is
he to leave,
is a foreigner to pour scorn on our kingdom? Shall my
Tyrians
ready their armour, and follow them out of the city,
and others drag
our ships from their docks? Go, bring fire quickly, hand out the
weapons, drive the oars! What am I saying? Where am I?
What madness twists my thoughts? Wretched Dido, is it
now
that your impious actions hurt you? The right time was
then,
when you gave him the crown. So this is the word and
loyalty
of the man whom they say bears his father’s gods
around,
of the man who carried his age-worn father on his
shoulders?
Couldn’t I have seized hold of him, torn his body
apart,
and scattered him on the waves? And put his friends to
the sword,
and Ascanius even, to feast on, as a course at his
father’s table?
True the fortunes of war are uncertain. Let them be so:
as one about to die, whom had I to fear? I should have
set fire
to his camp, filled the decks with flames, and
extinguishing
father and son, and their whole race, given up my own
life as well.
O Sun, you who illuminate all the works of this world,
and you Juno, interpreter and knower of all my pain,
and Hecate howled to, in cities, at midnight
crossroads,
you, avenging Furies, and you, gods of dying Elissa,
acknowledge this, direct your righteous will to my
troubles,
and hear my prayer. If it must be that the accursed
one
should reach the harbour, and sail to the shore:
if Jove’s destiny for him requires it, there his goal:
still, troubled in war by the armies of a proud race,
exiled from his territories, torn from Iulus’s
embrace,
let him beg help, and watch the shameful death of his
people:
then, when he has surrendered, to a peace without
justice,
may he not enjoy his kingdom or the days he longed
for,
but let him die before his time, and lie unburied on
the sand.
This I pray, these last words I pour out with my
blood.
Then, O Tyrians, pursue my hatred against his whole
line
and the race to come, and offer it as a tribute to my
ashes.
Let there be no love or treaties between our peoples.
Rise, some unknown avenger, from my dust, who will
pursue
the Trojan colonists with fire and sword, now, or in
time
to come, whenever the strength is granted him.
I pray that shore be opposed to shore, water to wave,
weapon to weapon: let them fight, them and their
descendants.”
BkIV:630-705
The Death of Dido
She spoke, and turned her thoughts this way and that,
considering how to destroy her hateful life.
Then she spoke briefly to Barce, Sychaeus’s nurse,
since dark ashes concealed her own, in her former
country:
“Dear nurse, bring my sister Anna here: tell her
to hurry, and sprinkle herself with water from the
river,
and bring the sacrificial victims and noble offerings.
Let her come, and you yourself veil your brow with
sacred ribbons.
My purpose is to complete the rites of Stygian
Jupiter,
that I commanded, and have duly begun, and put an end
to sorrow, and entrust the pyre of that Trojan leader
to the flames.”
So she said. The old woman zealously hastened her
steps.
But Dido restless, wild with desperate purpose,
rolling her bloodshot eyes, her trembling cheeks
stained with red flushes, yet pallid at approaching
death,
rushed into the house through its inner threshold,
furiously
climbed the tall funeral pyre, and unsheathed
a Trojan sword, a gift that was never acquired to this
end.
Then as she saw the Ilian clothing and the familiar
couch,
she lingered a while, in tears and thought, then
cast herself on the bed, and spoke her last words:
“Reminders, sweet while fate and the god allowed it,
accept this soul, and loose me from my sorrows.
I have lived, and I have completed the course that
Fortune granted,
and now my noble spirit will pass beneath the earth.
I have built a bright city: I have seen its
battlements,
avenging a husband I have exacted punishment
on a hostile brother, happy, ah, happy indeed
if Trojan keels had never touched my shores!”
She spoke, and buried her face in the couch.
“I shall die un-avenged, but let me die,” she cried.
“So, so I joy in travelling into the shadows.
Let the cruel Trojan’s eyes drink in this fire, on the
deep,
and bear with him the evil omen of my death.”
She had spoken, and in the midst of these words,
her servants saw she had fallen on the blade,
the sword frothed with blood, and her hands were
stained.
A cry rose to the high ceiling: Rumour, run riot,
struck the city.
The houses sounded with weeping and sighs and women’s
cries,
the sky echoed with a mighty lamentation,
as if all Carthage or ancient Tyre were falling
to the invading enemy, and raging flames were rolling
over the roofs of men and gods.
Her sister, terrified, heard it, and rushed through
the crowd,
tearing her cheeks with her nails, and beating her
breast,
and called out to the dying woman in accusation:
“So this was the meaning of it, sister? Did you aim to
cheat me?
This pyre of yours, this fire and altar were prepared
for my sake?
What shall I grieve for first in my abandonment? Did
you scorn
your sister’s company in dying? You should have
summoned me
to the same fate: the same hour the same sword’s hurt
should have
taken us both. I even built your pyre with these
hands,
and was I calling aloud on our father’s gods,
so that I would be absent, cruel one, as you lay here?
You have extinguished yourself and me, sister: your
people,
your Sidonian ancestors, and your city. I should bathe
your wounds with water and catch with my lips
whatever dying breath still hovers.” So saying she
climbed
the high levels, and clasped her dying sister to her
breast,
sighing, and stemming the dark blood with her dress.
Dido tried to lift her heavy eyelids again, but
failed:
and the deep wound hissed in her breast.
Lifting herself three times, she struggled to rise on
her elbow:
three times she fell back onto the bed, searching for
light in
the depths of heaven, with wandering eyes, and,
finding it, sighed.
Then all-powerful Juno, pitying the long suffering
of her difficult death, sent Iris from Olympus, to
release
the struggling spirit, and captive body. For since
she had not died through fate, or by a well-earned death,
but wretchedly, before her time, inflamed with sudden
madness,
Proserpine had not yet taken a lock of golden hair
from her head, or condemned her soul to Stygian Orcus.
So dew-wet Iris flew down through the sky, on saffron
wings,
trailing a thousand shifting colours across the sun,
and hovered over her head. “ I take this offering,
sacred to Dis,
as commanded, and release you from the body that was
yours.”
So she spoke, and cut the lock of hair with her right
hand.
All the warmth ebbed at once, and life vanished on the
breeze.
BkV:1-41
Aeneas Returns to Sicily
Meanwhile Aeneas with the fleet was holding a fixed
course
now in the midst of the sea, cutting the waves, dark
in a northerly
wind, looking back at the city walls that were glowing
now with
unhappy Dido’s funeral flames. The reason that such a
fire had
been lit was unknown: but the cruel pain when a great
love is
profaned, and the knowledge of what a frenzied woman
might do,
drove the minds of the Trojans to sombre forebodings.
When the ships reached deep water and land was no
longer
in sight, but everywhere was sea, and sky was
everywhere,
then a dark-blue rain cloud hung overhead, bringing
night and storm, and the waves bristled with shadows.
Palinurus the helmsman himself from the high stern
cried:
‘Ah! Why have such storm clouds shrouded the sky?
What do you intend, father Neptune?’ So saying, next
he ordered them to shorten sail, and bend to the heavy
oars,
then tacked against the wind, and spoke as follows:
‘Brave Aeneas, I would not expect to make Italy
with this sky, though guardian Jupiter promised it.
The winds, rising from the darkened west, have shifted
and roar across our path, and the air thickens for a
storm.
We cannot stand against it, or labour enough to
weather it.
Since Fortune overcomes us, let’s go with her,
and set our course wherever she calls. I think your
brother Eryx’s
friendly shores are not far off, and the harbours of
Sicily,
if I only remember the stars I observed rightly.’
Then virtuous Aeneas replied: ‘For my part I’ve seen
for some time
that the winds required it, and you’re steering into
them in vain.
Alter the course we sail. Is any land more welcome to
me,
any to which I’d prefer to steer my weary fleet,
than that which protects my Trojan friend Acestes,
and holds the bones of my father Anchises to its
breast?”
Having said this they searched out the port, and
following winds
filled their sails: the ships sailed swiftly on the
flood,
and they turned at last in delight towards known
shores.
But Alcestes, on a high hill in the distance, wondered
at the arrival
of friendly vessels, and met them, armed with
javelins,
in his Libyan she-bear’s pelt: he whom a Trojan
mother bore, conceived of the river-god Crinisius.
Not neglectful of his ancient lineage he rejoiced
at their return, entertained them gladly with his
rural riches,
and comforted the weary with the assistance of a
friend.
BkV:42-103
Aeneas Declares the Games
When, in the following Dawn, bright day had put the
stars
to flight, Aeneas called his companions together,
from the whole shore, and spoke from a high mound:
“Noble Trojans, people of the high lineage of the
gods,
the year’s cycle is complete to the very month
when we laid the bones, all that was left of my divine
father,
in the earth, and dedicated the sad altars. And now
the day is here (that the gods willed) if I am not
wrong,
which I will always hold as bitter, always honoured.
If I were keeping it, exiled in Gaetulian Syrtes,
or caught on the Argive seas, or in Mycenae’s city,
I’d still conduct the yearly rite, and line of solemn
procession, and heap up the due offerings on the
altar.
Now we even stand by the ashes and bones of my father
(not for my part I think without the will and power of
the gods)
and carried to this place we have entered a friendly
harbour.
So come and let us all celebrate the sacrifice with
joy:
let us pray for a wind, and may he will me to offer
these rites
each year when my city is founded, in temples that are
his.
Acestes, a Trojan born, gives you two head of oxen
for every ship: Invite the household gods to our
feast,
our own and those whom Acestes our host worships.
Also, when the ninth Dawn raises high the kindly light
for mortal men, and reveals the world in her rays,
I will declare a Trojan Games: first a race between
the swift ships:
then those with ability in running, and those, daring
in strength,
who step forward, who are superior with javelin and
slight arrows,
or trust themselves to fight with rawhide gloves:
let everyone be there and hope for the prize of a
well-deserved
palm branch. All be silent now, and wreathe your
brows.”
So saying he veiled his forehead with his mother’s
myrtle.
Helymus did likewise, Acestes of mature years, the boy
Ascanius, and the rest of the people followed.
Then he went with many thousands, from the gathering
to the grave-mound, in the midst of the vast
accompanying throng.
Here with due offering he poured two bowls of pure
wine
onto the ground, two of fresh milk, two of sacrificial
blood,
and, scattering bright petals, he spoke as follows:
“Once more, hail, my sacred father: hail, spirit,
ghost, ashes of my father, whom I rescued in vain.
I was not allowed to search, with you, for Italy’s
borders,
our destined fields, or Ausonia’s Tiber, wherever it
might be.”
He had just finished speaking when a shining snake
unwound
each of its seven coils from the base of the shrine,
in seven large loops, placidly encircling the mound,
and gliding
among the altars, its back mottled with blue-green
markings,
and its scales burning with a golden sheen, as a
rainbow forms
a thousand varied colours in clouds opposite the sun.
Aeneas was stunned by the sight. Finally, with a long
glide
among the bowls and polished drinking cups, the
serpent
tasted the food, and, having fed, departed the altar,
retreating harmlessly again into the depths of the
tomb.
Aeneas returned more eagerly to the tribute to his
father,
uncertain whether to treat the snake as the guardian
of the place,
or as his father’s attendant spirit: he killed two
sheep as customary,
two pigs, and as many black-backed heifers:
and poured wine from the bowls, and called on the
spirit
and shadow of great Anchises, released from Acheron.
And his companions as well, brought gifts gladly, of
which
each had a store, piling high the altars, sacrificing
bullocks:
others set out rows of cauldrons, and scattered among
the grass,
placed live coals under the spits, and roasted the
meat.
BkV:104-150
The Start of the Games
The eagerly-awaited day had arrived, and now
Phaethon’s horses brought a ninth dawn of cloudless
light,
and Acestes’s name and reputation had roused the
countryside:
they thronged the shore, a joyous crowd,
some to see Aeneas and his men, others to compete.
First the prizes were set out for them to see in the
centre
of the circuit, sacred tripods, green crowns and
palms,
rewards for the winners, armour, and clothes dyed with
purple,
and talents of silver and gold: and a trumpet sang
out,
from a central mound, that the games had begun.
Four well-matched ships with heavy oars
were chosen from the fleet for the first event.
Mnesthus, soon to be Mnesthus of Italy from whom
the Memmian people are named, captains the Sea-Serpent,
with its eager crew: Gyas, the vast Chimaera of huge
bulk,
a floating city, rowed by the Trojan men
on three decks, with the oars raised in triple rows:
Sergestus, from whom the house of Sergia gets its
name,
sails in the great Centaur, and Cloanthus from whom
your family derives, Cluentius of Rome, in the
sea-green Scylla.
There’s a rock far out at sea opposite the foaming
shore,
which, lashed by the swollen waves, is sometimes
drowned,
when wintry north-westerlies hide the stars:
it is quiet in calm weather and flat ground is raised
above
the motionless water, a welcome haunt for sun-loving
sea-birds.
Here our ancestor Aeneas set up a leafy oak-trunk
as a mark, as a sign for the sailors to know where
to turn back, and circle round the long course.
Then they chose places by lot, and the captains
themselves, on
the sterns, gleamed from a distance, resplendent in
purple and gold:
the rest of the men were crowned with poplar leaves,
and their naked shoulders glistened, shining with oil.
They manned the benches, arms ready at the oars:
readied for action they waited for the signal, and
pounding fear,
and the desire aroused for glory, devoured their
leaping hearts.
Then when the clear trumpet gave the signal, all
immediately
shot forward from the starting line, the sailor’s
shouts
struck the heavens, as arms were plied the waters
turned to foam.
they cut the furrows together, and the whole surface
gaped wide, ploughed by the oars and the three-pronged
beaks.
The speed is not as great when the two horse chariots
hit the field in their race, shooting from their
stalls:
and the charioteers shake the rippling reins over
their
galloping team, straining forward to the lash.
So the whole woodland echoes with applause, the shouts
of men, and the partisanship of their supporters,
the sheltered beach concentrates the sound
and the hills, reverberating, return the clamour.
BkV:151-243
The Boat Race
Gyas runs before the pack, and glides forward on the
waves,
amongst the noise and confusion: Cloanthus follows
next,
his ship better manned, but held back by its weight.
After them separated equally the Sea-Serpent
and the Centaur strain to win a lead:
now the Sea-Serpent has it, now the huge Centaur wins
in front,
now both sweep on together their bows level,
their long keels ploughing the salt sea.
Now they near the rock and are close to the marker,
when Gyas, the leader, winning at the half-way point,
calls out loudly to his pilot Menoetes:
“Why so far adrift to starboard? Steer her course this
way:
hug the shore and graze the crags to port, oars
raised:
let others keep to deep water.” He spoke, but Menoetes
fearing unseen reefs wrenched the prow towards the
open sea.
“Why so far adrift?” again, “Head for the rocks,
Menoetes!”
he shouts to him forcefully, and behold, he sees
Cloanthus
right at his back and taking the riskier course.
He squeezed a path between Gyas’s ship and the booming
rocks
inside to starboard, suddenly passing the leader,
and, leaving the marker behind, reached safe water.
Then indeed great indignation burned in the young
man’s marrow,
and there were tears on his cheeks, and forgetting his
own pride
and his crew’s safety he heaved the timid Menoetes
headlong into the sea from the high stern:
he stood to the helm, himself captain and steersman,
urged on his men, and turned for the shore.
But when Menoetes old as he was, clawed his way back
heavily
and with difficulty at last from the sea floor, he
climbed to the top
of the crag and sat down on the dry rock dripping, in
his wet
clothing. The Trojans laughed as he fell, and swam
and laughed as he vomited the seawater from his chest.
At this a joyful hope of passing Gyas, as he stalled,
is aroused in Sergestus and Mnestheus, the two behind,
Sergestus takes the leading place and nears the rock,
still he’s not a full ship’s length in front, only
part:
the rival Sea-Serpent closes on him with her prow.
Then, Mnesthus walking among his crew amidships
exhorted them: “Now, now rise to the oars, comrades
of Hector, you whom I chose as companions at Troy’s
last fatal hour: now, exert all that strength,
that spirit you showed in the Gaetulian shoals,
the Ionian Sea, and Cape Malea’s pursuing waves.
Now I, Mnesthus, do not seek to be first or try to win
–
let those conquer whom you have granted to do so,
Neptune –
but oh, it would be shameful to return last: achieve
this for us,
countrymen, and prevent our disgrace.” They bend to it
with fierce rivalry: the bronze stern shudders at
their powerful
strokes: and the sea-floor drops away beneath them:
then shallow breathing makes limbs and parched lips
quiver.
and their sweat runs down in streams.
Chance brings the men the glory that they long for.
When Segestus, his spirit raging, forces his bows,
on the inside, towards the rocks, and enters
dangerous water, unhappily he strikes the jutting
reef.
The cliff shakes, the oars jam against them, and snap
on the sharp edges of stone, and the prow hangs there,
snagged.
The sailors leap up, and, shouting aloud at the delay,
gather iron-tipped poles and sharply-pointed
boathooks,
and rescue their smashed oars from the water.
But Mnesthus, delighted, and made eager by his
success,
with a swift play of oars, and a prayer to the winds.
heads for home waters and courses the open sea,
as a dove, whose nest and sweet chicks are hidden
among the rocks, suddenly startled from some hollow,
takes flight for the fields, frightened from her
cover,
and beats her wings loudly, but soon gliding in still
air
skims her clear path, barely moving her swift pinions:
in this way Mnestheus and the Sea-Dragon herself
furrow
the final stretch of water in flight, and her impetus
alone, carries her on her winged path. Firstly
he leaves Segestus behind struggling on the raised
rock
then in shoal water, calling vainly for help,
and learning how to race with shattered oars.
Then he overhauls Gyas and the Chimaera’s huge bulk:
which, deprived of her helmsman now, gives way.
Now Cloanthus alone is left ahead, near to the finish,
Mnestheus heads for him and chases closely
exerting all his powers. Then indeed the shouts
redouble,
and together all enthusiastically urge on the pursuer.
The former crew are unhappy lest they fail to keep
the honour that is theirs and the glory already
in their possession, and would sell their lives for
fame.
the latter feed on success: they can because they
think they can.
And with their prow alongside they might have snatched
the prize,
if Cleanthus had not stretched out his hands over the
sea
and poured out his prayers, and called to the gods in
longing.
“Gods, whose empire is the ocean, whose waters I
course,
On shore, I will gladly set a snow-white bull
before your altars, in payment of my vows,
throw the entrailsinto the saltwater, and pour out
pure wine.”
He spoke, and all the Nereids, Phorcus’s choir, and
virgin Panopea,
heard him in the wave’s depths, and father Portunus
drove him
on his track, with his great hand: the ship ran to
shore, swifter
than south wind or flying arrow, and plunged into the
deep harbour.
BkV:244-285
The Prize-Giving for the Boat Race
Then Anchises’s son, calling them all together as is
fitting,
by the herald’s loud cry declares Cloanthus the
winner,
and wreathes his forehead with green laurel, and tells
him
to choose three bullocks, and wine, and a large talent
of silver
as gifts for the ships. He adds special honours for
the captains:
a cloak worked in gold for the victor, edged
with Meliboean deep purple in a double meandering
line,
Ganymede the boy-prince woven on it, as if breathless
with eagerness, running with his javelin, chasing the
swift stags
on leafy Ida: whom Jupiter’s eagle, carrier of the
lightning-bolt,
has now snatched up into the air, from Ida, with taloned
feet:
his aged guards stretch their hands to the sky in
vain,
and the barking dogs snap at the air. He gives to the
warrior,
who took second place by his prowess, a coat of mail
for his own,
with polished hooks, in triple woven gold, a beautiful
thing
and a defence in battle, that he himself as victor had
taken
from Demoleos, by the swift Simois, below the heights
of Ilium.
Phegeus and Sagaris, his servants, can barely carry
its folds,
on straining shoulders: though, wearing it, Demoleus
used to drive the scattered Trojans at a run.
He grants the third prize of a pair of bronze
cauldrons
and bowls made of silver with designs in bold relief.
Now they have all received their gifts and are walking
off,
foreheads tied with scarlet ribbons, proud of their
new wealth,
when Segestus, who showing much skill has with
difficulty
got clear of the cruel rock, oars missing and one tier
useless,
brings in his boat, to mockery and no glory.
As a snake, that a bronze-rimmed wheel has crossed
obliquely,
is often caught on the curb of a road, or like one
that a passer-by
has crushed with a heavy blow from a stone and left
half-dead,
writhes its long coils, trying in vain to escape, part
aggressive,
with blazing eyes, and hissing, its neck raised high
in the air,
part held back by the constraint of its wounds,
struggling
to follow with its coils, and twining back on its own
length:
so the ship moves slowly on with wrecked oars:
nevertheless she makes sail, and under full sail
reaches harbour.
Aeneas presents Sergestus with the reward he promised,
happy that the ship is saved, and the crew rescued.
He is granted a Cretan born slave-girl, Pholoe, not
unskilled
in the arts of Minerva, nursing twin boys at her
breast.
BkV:286-361
The Foot Race
Once this race was done Aeneas headed for a grassy
space,
circled round about by curving wooded hillsides,
forming an amphitheatre at the valley’s centre:
the hero took himself there in the midst of the throng
many thousands strong, and occupied a raised throne.
Here if any by chance wanted to compete in the
footrace
he tempted their minds with the reward, and set the
prizes.
Trojans and Sicilians gathered together from all
sides,
Nisus and Euryalus the foremost among them,
Euryalus famed for his beauty, and in the flower of
youth,
Nisus famed for his devoted affection for the lad:
next
came princely Diores, of Priam’s royal blood,
then Salius and Patron together, one an Arcanian,
the other of Arcadian blood and Tegean race:
then two young Sicilians, Helymus and Panopes,
used to the forests, companions of old Acestes:
and many others too, whose fame is lost in obscurity.
Then Aeneas amongst them spoke as follows:
“Take these words to heart, and give pleasurable
attention.
None of your number will go away without a reward from
me.
I’ll give two Cretan arrows, shining with polished
steel,
for each man, to take away, and a double-headed axe
chased
with silver: all who are present will receive the same
honour.
The first three will share prizes, and their heads
will be crowned
with pale-green olive: let the first as winner take a
horse
decorated with trappings: the second an Amazonian
quiver,
filled with Thracian arrows, looped with a broad belt
of gold
and fastened by a clasp with a polished gem:
let the third leave content with this Argive helmet.”
When he had finished they took their places and,
suddenly,
on hearing the signal, they left the barrier and shot
onto the course,
streaming out like a storm cloud, gaze fixed on the
goal.
Nisus was off first, and darted away, ahead of all the
others,
faster than the wind or the winged lightning-bolt:
Salius followed behind him, but a long way behind:
then after a space Euryalus was third: Helymus
pursued Euryalus, and there was Diores speeding near
him,
now touching foot to foot, leaning at his shoulder:
if the course had been longer he’d have
slipped past him, and left the outcome in doubt.
Now, wearied, almost at the end of the track,
they neared the winning post itself, when the unlucky
Nisus
fell in some slippery blood, which when the bullocks
were killed
had chanced to drench the ground and the green grass.
Here the youth, already rejoicing at winning, failed
to keep
his sliding feet on the ground, but fell flat,
straight in the slimy dirt and sacred blood.
But he didn’t forget Euryalus even then, nor his love:
but, picking himself up out of the wet, obstructed
Salius,
who fell head over heels onto the thick sand.
Euryalus sped by and, darting onwards to applause and
the shouts
of his supporters, took first place, winning with his
friend’s help.
Helymus came in behind him, then Diores, now in third
place.
At this Salius filled the whole vast amphitheatre, and
the faces
of the foremost elders, with his loud clamour,
demanding to be given the prize stolen from him by a
trick.
His popularity protects Euryalus, and fitting tears,
and ability is more pleasing in a beautiful body.
Diores encourages him, and protests in a loud voice,
having reached the palm, but claiming the last prize
in vain,
if the highest honour goes to Salius.
Then Aeneas the leader said, “Your prizes are still
yours,
lads, and no one is altering the order of attainment:
but allow me to take pity on an unfortunate friend’s
fate.”
So saying he gives Salius the huge pelt of a Gaetulian
lion,
heavy with shaggy fur, its claws gilded.
At this Nisus comments: “If these are the prizes for
losing,
and you pity the fallen, what fitting gift will you
grant to Nisus,
who would have earned first place through merit
if ill luck had not dogged me, as it did Salius?”
And with that he shows his face and limbs drenched
with foul mud. The best of leaders smiles at him,
and orders a shield to be brought, the work of
Didymaon,
once unpinned by the Greeks from Neptune’s sacred
threshold:
this outstanding prize he gives to the noble youth.
BkV:362-484
The Boxing Contest
When the races were done and the gifts allotted,
Aeneas cried: “Now, he who has skill and courage in
his heart,
let him stand here and raise his arms, his fists bound
in hide.”
So saying he set out the double prize for the boxing,
a bullock for the winner, dressed with gold and sacred
ribbons,
and a sword and a noble helmet to console the
defeated.
Without delay Dares, hugely strong, raised his face
and rose, to a great murmur from the crowd,
he who alone used to compete with Paris,
and by that same mound where mighty Hector lies
he struck the victorious Butes, borne of the Bebrycian
race of Amycus, as he came forward, vast in bulk,
and stretched him dying on the yellow sand.
Such was Dares who lifted his head up for the bout at
once,
showed his broad shoulders, stretched his arms out,
sparring
to right and left, and threw punches at the air.
A contestant was sought for him, but no one from all
that crowd
dared face the man, or pull the gloves on his hands.
So, cheerfully thinking they had all conceded the
prize, he stands
before Aeneas, and without more delay holds the
bullock’s horn
in his left hand and says: “Son of the goddess, if no
one dare
commit himself to fight, when will my standing here
end?
How long is it right for me to be kept waiting? Order
me to lead
your gift away.” All the Trojans together shout their
approval,
and demand that what was promised be granted him.
At this Entellus upbraids Acestes, sitting next to him
on a stretch of green grass, with grave words:
“Entellus, once the bravest of heroes, was it all in
vain,
will you let so great a prize be carried off without a
struggle,
and so tamely? Where’s our divine master, Eryx, now,
famous to no purpose? Where’s your name throughout
Sicily,
and why are those spoils of battle hanging in your
house?”
To this Entellus replies: “It’s not that quelled by
fear, pride or love
of fame has died: but my chill blood is dull with age’s
sluggishness,
and the vigour in my body is lifeless and exhausted.
If I had what I once had, which that boaster enjoys
and relies on, if that youthfulness were mine now,
then I’d certainly have stepped forward, but not
seduced
by prizes or handsome bullocks: I don’t care about
gifts.”
Having spoken he throws a pair of gloves of immense
weight
which fierce Eryx, binding the tough hide onto his
hands,
used to fight in, into the middle of the ring. Their
minds
are stunned: huge pieces of hide from seven massive
oxen
are stiff with the iron and lead sewn into them. Above
all
Dares himself is astonished, and declines the bout
from a distance,
and Anchises’s noble son turns the huge volume
and weight of the gloves backwards and forwards.
Then the older man speaks like this, from his heart:
“What if you’d seen the arms and gloves of Hercules
himself, and the fierce fight on this very shore?
Your brother Eryx once wore these (you see that
they’re still stained with blood and brain matter)
He faced great Hercules in them: I used to fight in
them
when more vigorous blood granted me strength,
and envious age had not yet sprinkled my brow with
snow.
But if a Trojan, Dares, shrinks from these gloves of
ours,
and good Aeneas accepts it, and Acestes my sponsor agrees,
let’s level the odds. I’ll forgo the gloves of Eryx
(banish your fears): you, throw off your Trojan ones.”
So speaking he flings his double-sided cloak from his
shoulders,
baring the massive muscles of his limbs, his thighs
with their huge bones, and stands, a giant, in the
centre of the arena.
Then our ancestor, Anchises’s son, lifts up a like
pair of gloves,
and protects the hands of both contestants equally.
Immediately each takes up his stance, poised on his
toes,
and fearlessly raises his arms high in front of him.
Keeping their heads up and well away from the blows
they begin to spar, fist to fist, and provoke a
battle,
the one better at moving his feet, relying on his
youth,
the other powerful in limbs and bulk: but his slower
legs quiver,
his knees are unsteady, and painful gasps shake his
huge body.
They throw many hard punches at each other but in
vain,
they land many on their curved flanks, or their chests
are thumped loudly, gloves often stray to ears
and brows, and jaws rattle under the harsh blows.
Entellus stands solidly, not moving, in the same
stance,
avoiding the blows with his watchful eyes and body
alone.
Dares, like someone who lays siege to a towering city,
or surrounds a mountain fortress with weapons,
tries this opening and that, seeking everywhere, with
his art,
and presses hard with varied but useless assaults.
Then Entellus standing up to him, extends his raised
right:
the other, foreseeing the downward angle of the
imminent blow,
slides his nimble body aside, and retreats:
Entellus wastes his effort on the air and the heavy
man
falls to the ground heavily, with his whole weight,
as a hollow pine-tree, torn up by its roots, sometimes
falls
on Mount Erymanthus or mighty Mount Ida.
The Trojans and the Sicilan youths leap up eagerly:
a shout lifts to the sky, and Acestes is the first to
run forward
and with sympathy raises his old friend from the
ground.
But that hero, not slowed or deterred by his fall,
returns more eagerly to the fight, and generates power
from anger.
Then shame and knowledge of his own ability revive his
strength,
and he drives Dares in fury headlong across the whole
arena,
doubling his punches now, to right and left. No pause,
or rest:
like the storm clouds rattling their dense hailstones
on the roof,
as heavy are the blows from either hand, as the hero
continually batters at Dares and destroys him.
Then Aeneas, their leader, would not allow the wrath
to continue
longer, nor Entellus to rage with such bitterness of
spirit,
but put an end to the contest, and rescued the weary
Dares,
speaking gently to him with these words:
“Unlucky man, why let such savagery depress your
spirits?
Don’t you see another has the power: the gods have
changed sides?
Yield to the gods.” He spoke and, speaking, broke up
the fight.
But Dare’s loyal friends led him away to the ships,
his weakened knees collapsing, his head swaying from
side to side,
spitting out clots of blood from his mouth, teeth
amongst them.
Called back they accept the helmet and sword,
leaving the winner’s palm and the bullock for
Entellus.
At this the victor exultant in spirit and glorying in
the bullock,
said: “Son of the Goddess, and all you Trojans,
know now what physical strength I had in my youth,
and from what fate you’ve recalled and rescued Dares.”
He spoke and planted himself opposite the bullock,
still standing there as prize for the bout, then,
drawing back
his right fist, aimed the hard glove between the horns
and broke its skull scattering the brains: the ox
fell quivering to the ground, stretched out lifeless.
Standing over it he poured these words from his chest:
“Eryx, I offer you this, the better animal, for
Dares’s life:
the winner here, I relinquish the gloves and my art.”
BkV:485-544
The Archery Contest
Immediately Aeneas invites together all who might wish
to compete with their swift arrows, and sets out the
prizes.
With a large company he raises a mast from Serestus’s
ship,
and ties a fluttering dove, at which they can aim
their shafts, to a cord piercing the high mast.
The men gather and a bronze helmet receives the lots
tossed into it: the first of them all to be drawn,
to cheers of support, is Hippocoon son of Hyrtaces,
followed by Mnestheus, the winner of the boat race
a while ago: Mnestheus crowned with green olive.
Eurytion’s the third, your brother, O famous Pandorus,
who, ordered to wreck the treaty, in the past,
was the first to hurl his spear amongst the Greeks.
Acestes is the last name out from the depths of the
helmet,
daring to try his own hand at the youthful contest.
Then they take arrows from their quivers, and, each
man
for himself, with vigorous strength, bends the bow
into an arc,
and first through the air from the twanging string
the son of Hyrcanus’s shaft, cutting the swift breeze,
reaches the mark, and strikes deep into the mast.
The mast quivered, the bird fluttered its wings in
fear,
and there was loud applause from all sides.
Then Mnestheus eagerly took his stand with bent bow,
aiming high, his arrow notched level with his eyes.
But to his dismay he was not able to hit the bird
herself with the shaft, but broke the knots of hemp
cord
that tied her foot as it hung from the mast:
she fled to the north wind and the dark clouds, in
flight.
Then Eurytion who had been holding his bow ready, with
drawn
arrow for some time, called on his brother to note his
vow,
quickly eyed the dove, enjoying the freedom of the
skies,
and transfixed her, as she beat her wings beneath a
dark cloud.
She dropped lifeless, leaving her spirit with the
starry heavens,
and, falling, brought back to earth the shaft that
pierced her.
Acestes alone remained: the prize was lost:
yet he still shot his arrow high into the air,
showing an older man’s skill, the bow twanging. Then
a sudden wonder appeared before their eyes, destined
to be
of great meaning: the time to come unveiled its
crucial outcome,
and great seers of the future celebrated it as an
omen.
The arrow, flying through the passing clouds, caught
fire
marked out its path with flames, then vanished into
thin air,
as shooting stars, loosed from heaven often transit
the sky, drawing their tresses after them. Astonished,
the Trinacrians and Trojans stood rooted to the spot,
praying to the gods: nor did their great leader Aeneas
reject the sign, but embracing the joyful Acestes,
loaded him with handsome gifts and spoke as follows:
“Take these, old man: since the high king of Olympus
shows,
by these omens,
that he wishes you to take extraordinary honours.
You shall have this gift, owned by aged Anchises
himself,
a bowl engraved with figures, that Cisseus of Thrace
once long ago gave Anchises my father as a memento
of himself, and as a pledge of his friendship.”
So saying he wreathed his brow with green laurel
and proclaimed Acestes the highest victor among them
all.
Nor did good Eurytion begrudge the special prize,
though he alone brought the bird down from the sky.
Next he who cut the cord stepped forward for his
reward,
and lastly he who’s swift shaft had transfixed the
mast.
BkV:545-603
The Exhibition of Horsemanship
But before the match is complete Aeneas the leader
calls Epytides to him, companion and guardian
of young Iulus, and speaks into his loyal ear:
“Off! Go! Tell Ascanius, if he has his troop of boys
ready with him, and is prepared for the horse-riding
to show himself with his weapons, and lead them out
in honour of his grandfather.” He himself orders the
whole
crowd of people to leave the lengthy circuit, emptying
the field.
The boys arrive, and glitter together on their bridled
horses
under their fathers’ gaze, and the men of Troy
and Sicily murmur in admiration as they go by.
They all have their hair properly circled by a cut
garland:
they each carry two cornel-wood spears tipped with
steel,
some have shining quivers on their shoulders: a
flexible
torque of twisted gold sits high on their chests
around the neck.
The troops of horse are three in number, and three
leaders
ride ahead: two groups of six boys follow each,
commanded alike and set out in gleaming ranks.
One line of youths is led joyfully by little Priam,
recalling his grandfather’s name, your noble child,
Polites, seed of the Italians: whom a piebald
Thracian horse carries, showing white pasterns
as it steps, and a high white forehead.
Next is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii trace their
line,
little Atys, a boy loved by the boy Iulus.
Last, and most handsome of all in appearance,
Iulus himself rides a Sidonian horse, that radiant
Dido
had given him as a remembrance of herself,
and a token of her love. The rest of the youths
ride the Sicilian horses of old Acestes.
The Trojans greet the shy lads with applause, and
delight
in gazing at them, seeing their ancient families in
their faces.
When they have ridden happily round the whole assembly
under the eyes of their kin, Epytides with a prolonged
cry
gives the agreed signal and cracks his whip.
They gallop apart in two equal detachments, the three
groups parting company, and dissolving their columns,
then, recalled, they wheel round, and charge with
level lances.
Then they perform other figures and counter-figures
in opposing ranks, and weave in circles inside counter-circles,
and perform a simulated battle with weapons.
Now their backs are exposed in flight, now they turn
their spears to charge, now ride side by side in
peace.
Like the Labyrinth in mountainous Crete, they say,
that contained a path winding between blind walls,
wandering with guile through a thousand turnings,
so that undetected and irretraceable errors
might foil any guidelines that might be followed:
so the Trojan children twine their steps in just such
a pattern,
weaving battle and flight, in their display, like
dolphins
swimming through the ocean streams, cutting the
Carpathian
and Lybian waters, and playing among the waves.
Ascanius first revived this kind of riding, and this
contest,
when he encircled Alba Longa with walls, and taught
the Early
Latins to celebrate it in the way he and the Trojan
youth
had done together: the Albans taught their children:
mighty Rome
received it from them in turn, and preserved the
ancestral rite:
and today the boys are called ‘Troy’ and their
procession ‘Trojan’.
So the games are completed celebrating Aeneas’s sacred
father.
BkV:604-663
Juno sends Iris to Fire the Trojan Ships
Here Fortune first alters, switching loyalties. While
they,
with their various games, are paying due honours to
the tomb,
Saturnian Juno sends Iris down from the sky to the
Trojan fleet,
breathing out a breeze for her passage, thinking
deeply
about her ancient grievance which is yet unsatisfied.
Iris, hurrying on her way along a rainbow’s thousand
colours
speeds swiftly down her track, a girl unseen.
She views the great crowd, and scans the shore,
sees the harbour deserted, and the ships abandoned.
But far away on the lonely sands the Trojan women
are weeping Anchises’s loss, and all, weeping, gaze
at the deep ocean. “Ah, what waves and seas are still
left
for weary folk!” They are all of one voice. They pray
for
a city: they tire of enduring suffering on the waves.
So Iris, not ignorant of mischief, darts among them,
setting aside the appearance and robes of a goddess:
becoming Beroe, the old wife of Tmarian Doryclus,
who had once had family, sons, and a famous name.
and as such moves among the Trojan mothers, saying:
“O wretched ones, whom Greek hands failed to drag
to death in the war beneath our native walls!
O unhappy people what fate does Fortune reserve for
you?
The seventh summer is on the turn since Troy’s
destruction,
and we endure the crossing of every sea and shore, so
many inhospitable stones and stars, while we chase over the vast sea
after an Italy that flees from us, tossing upon the
waves.
Here are the borders of our brother Eryx and our host
Acestes:
what stops us building walls and granting our citizens
a city?
O fatherland, O gods of our houses, rescued from the
enemy
in vain, will no city now be called Troy? Shall I see
nowhere a Xanthus or a Simois, Hector’s rivers?
Come now, and burn these accursed ships with me.
For the ghost of Cassandra, the prophetess, seemed to
hand me
burning torches in dream: ‘Seek Troy here: here is
your home’ she said. Now is the time for deeds,
not delay, given such portents. See, four altars to
Neptune:
the god himself lends us fire and the courage.”
So saying she first of all firmly seizes the dangerous
flame
and, straining to lift it high, brandishes it, and
hurls it.
The minds of the Trojan women are startled, and their
wits
stunned. Here, one of the crowd, Pyrgo, the eldest,
the royal nurse of so many of Priam’s sons, says:
“This is not Beroe, you women, this is no wife
of Rhoetitian Doryclus: look at the signs of divine
beauty
and the burning eyes, the spirit she possesses,
her form, the sound of her voice, her footsteps as she
moves.
Just now I myself left Beroe, sick and unhappy, that
she alone
was missing so important a rite and could not pay
Anchises
the offerings due to him.” So she speaks. At first the
women
gaze in uncertainty at the ships, with angry glances,
torn between a wretched yearning for the land
they have reached, and the kingdom fate calls them to,
when the goddess, climbs the sky on soaring wings,
cutting a giant rainbow in her flight through the
clouds.
Then truly amazed at the wonder, and driven by
madness,
they cry out and some snatch fire from the innermost
hearths,
others strip the altars, and throw on leaves and twigs
and burning brands. Fire rages unchecked among
the benches, and oars, and the hulls of painted pine.
BkV:664-699
The Fleet is Saved
Eumelus carries the news of the burning ships to
Anchises’s tomb
and the ranks of the ampitheatre, and looking behind
them
they themselves see dark ash floating upwards in a
cloud.
Ascanius is first to turn his horse eagerly towards
the troubled
encampment, as joyfully as he led his galloping troop,
and his breathless guardians cannot reign him back.
“What new madness is this? He cries. “What now, what
do you
aim at, wretched women? You’re burning your own hopes
not the enemy, nor a hostile Greek camp. See I am
your Ascanius!” And he flung his empty helmet in front
of his feet,
that he’d worn as he’d inspired his pretence of battle
in play.
Aeneas hurries there too, and the Trojan companies.
But the women scatter in fear here and there along the
shore,
and stealthily head for the woods and any cavernous
rocks:
they hate what they’ve done and the light, with sober
minds
they recognise their kin, and Juno is driven from
their hearts.
But the roaring flames don’t lose their indomitable
fury
just for that: the pitch is alight under the wet
timbers,
slowly belching smoke, the keel is gradually burned,
and the pestilence sinks through a whole hull,
nor are heroic strength or floods of water any use.
Then virtuous Aeneas tears the clothes from his chest,
and calls on the gods for help, lifting his hands:
“All-powerful Jupiter, if you don’t hate the Trojans
to a man, if your former affection has regard
for human suffering, let the fleet escape the flames
now,
Father, and save our slender Trojan hopes from ruin:
or if I deserve this, send what is left of us to death
with your
angry lightning-bolt, and overwhelm us with your
hand.”
He had barely spoken, when a dark storm with pouring
rain
rages without check and the high hills and plains
quake with thunder: a murky downpour falls
from the whole sky, the blackest of heavy southerlies,
and the ships are brimming, the half-burnt timbers
soaked,
until all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls
except four, are saved from the pestilence.
BkV:700-745
Nautes’ Advice and Anchises’ Ghost
But Aeneas, the leader, stunned by the bitter blow,
pondered his great worries, turning them this way
and that in his mind. Should he settle in Sicily’s
fields,
forgetting his destiny, or strike out for Italian
shores?
Then old Nautes, whom alone Tritonian Pallas had
taught,
and rendered famous for his great skill (she gave him
answers, telling what the great gods’ anger portended,
or what the course of destiny demanded),
began to solace Aeneas with these words:
“Son of the Goddess, let us follow wherever fate ebbs
or flows,
whatever comes, every fortune may be conquered by
endurance.
You have Trojan Acestes of the line of the gods:
let him share your decisions and be a willing partner,
entrust to him those who remain from the lost ships,
and those tired of your great venture and your
affairs:
Select also aged men and women exhausted by the sea,
and anyone with you who is frail, or afraid of danger,
and let the weary have their city in this land:
and if agreed they will call it by Acestes’s name.”
Then roused by such words from an aged friend,
Aeneas’s heart was truly torn between so many cares.
And now black Night in her chariot, borne upwards,
occupied the heavens: and the likeness of his father
Anchises
seemed to glide down from the sky, and speak so:
“Son, dearer to me than life, when life remained,
my son, troubled by Troy’s fate, I come here
at Jove’s command, he who drove the fire from the
ships,
and at last takes pity on you from high heaven.
Follow the handsome advice that old Nautus gives:
take chosen youth, and the bravest hearts, to Italy.
In Latium you must subdue a tough race, harshly
trained.
Yet, first, go to the infernal halls of Dis, and in
deep
Avernus seek a meeting with me, my son. For impious
Tartarus, with its sad shades, does not hold me,
I live in Elysium, and the lovely gatherings of the
blessed.
Here the chaste Sibyl will bring you, with much blood
of
black sheep. Then you’ll learn all about your race,
and the city granted you. Now: farewell. Dew-wet Night
turns mid-course, and cruel Morning, with panting
steeds,
breathes on me.” He spoke and fled like smoke into
thin air.
“Where are you rushing to? Aeneas cried, “Where are
you
hurrying? Who do you flee? Who bars you from my
embrace?”
So saying he revived the embers of the slumbering fires,
and
paid reverence, humbly, with sacred grain and a full
censer,
to the Trojan Lar, and the inner shrine of
white-haired Vesta.
BkV:746-778
Departure from Sicily
Immediately he summoned his companions, Acestes first
of all,
and told them of Jove’s command, and his dear father’s
counsel,
and the decision he had reached in his mind. There was
little delay
in their discussions, and Acestes did not refuse to
accept his orders.
They transferred the women to the new city’s roll, and
settled
there those who wished, spirits with no desire for
great glory.
They themselves, thinned in their numbers, but with
manhood
fully alive to war, renewed the rowing benches, and
replaced
the timbers of the ships burnt by fire, and fitted
oars and rigging.
Meanwhile Aeneas marked out the city limits with a
plough
and allocated houses: he declared that this was Ilium
and this place Troy. Acestes the Trojan revelled in
his kingdom,
appointed a court, and gave out laws to the assembled
senate.
Then