The Aeneids of Virgil Part 6

But on a rock exceeding high yet did Celaeeno rest, Unhappy seer! there breaks withal a voice from out her breast:

'What, war to pay for slaughtered neat, war for our heifers slain?

O children of Laomedon, the war then will ye gain?

The sackless Harpies will ye drive from their own land away?

Then let this sink into your souls, heed well the words I say; 250 The Father unto Phoebus told a tale that Phoebus told To me, and I the first-born fiend that same to you unfold: Ye sail for Italy, and ye, the winds appeased by prayer, Shall come to Italy, and gain the grace of haven there: Yet shall ye gird no wall about the city granted you, Till famine, and this murder's wrong that ye were fain to do, Drive you your tables gnawed with teeth to eat up utterly.'

She spake, and through the woody deeps borne off on wings did fly.

But sudden fear fell on our folk, and chilled their frozen blood; 259 Their hearts fell down; with weapon-stroke no more they deem it good To seek for peace: but rather now sore prayers and vows they will, Whether these things be G.o.ddesses or filthy fowls of ill.

Father Anchises on the strand stretched both his hands abroad, And, bidding all their wors.h.i.+p due, the Mighty Ones adored: 'G.o.ds, bring their threats to nought! O G.o.ds, turn ye the curse, we pray!

Be kind, and keep the pious folk!'

Then bade he pluck away The hawser from the sh.o.r.e and slack the warping cable's strain: The south wind fills the sails, we fare o'er foaming waves again, E'en as the helmsman and the winds have will that we should fare.

And now amidmost of the flood Zacynthus' woods appear, 270 Dulichium, Samos, Neritos, with sides of stony steep: Wide course from cliffs of Ithaca, Laertes' land, we keep, Cursing the soil that bore and nursed Ulysses' cruelty.

Now open up Leucata's peaks, that fare so cloudy high Over Apollo, mighty dread to all seafarers grown; But weary thither do we steer and make the little town, We cast the anchors from the bows and swing the sterns a-strand.

And therewithal since we at last have gained the longed-for land, We purge us before Jupiter and by the altars pray, Then on the sh.o.r.es of Actium's head the Ilian plays we play. 280 Anointed with the sleeking oil there strive our fellows stripped In wrestling game of fatherland: it joys us to have slipped By such a host of Argive towns amidmost of the foe.

Meanwhile, the sun still pressing on, the year about doth go, And frosty winter with his north the sea's face rough doth wear; A buckler of the hollow bra.s.s of mighty Abas' gear I set amid the temple-doors with singing scroll thereon, aeNEAS HANGETH ARMOUR HERE FROM CONQUERING DANAANS WON.

And then I bid to leave the sh.o.r.e and man the thwarts again.

Hard strive the folk in smiting sea, and oar-blades brush the main. 290 The airy high Phaeacian towers sink down behind our wake, And coasting the Epirote sh.o.r.es Chaonia's bay we make, And so Buthrotus' city-walls high set we enter in.

There tidings hard for us to trow unto our ears do win, How Helenus, e'en Priam's son, hath gotten wife and crown Of Pyrrhus come of aeacus, and ruleth Greekish town, And that Andromache hath wed one of her folk once more.

All mazed am I; for wondrous love my heart was kindling sore To give some word unto the man, of such great things to learn: So from the haven forth I fare, from s.h.i.+ps and sh.o.r.e I turn. 300

But as it happed Andromache was keeping yearly day, Pouring sad gifts unto the dead, amidst a grove that lay Outside the town, by wave that feigned the Simos that had been, Blessing the dead by Hector's mound empty and gra.s.sy green, Which she with altars twain thereby had hallowed for her tears.

But when she saw me drawing nigh with armour that Troy bears About me, senseless, throughly feared with marvels grown so great, She stiffens midst her gaze; her bones are reft of life-blood's heat, She totters, scarce, a long while o'er, this word comes forth from her:

'Is the show true, O G.o.ddess-born? com'st thou a messenger 310 Alive indeed? or if from thee the holy light is fled, Where then is Hector?'

Flowed the tears e'en as the word she said, And with her wailing rang the place: sore moved I scarce may speak This word to her, grown wild with grief, in broken voice and weak: 'I live indeed, I drag my life through outer ways of ill; Doubt not, thou seest the very sooth.

Alas! what hap hath caught thee up from such a man downcast?

Hath any fortune worthy thee come back again at last?

Doth Hector's own Andromache yet serve in Pyrrhus' bed?'

She cast her countenance adown, and in a low voice said: 320 'O thou alone of Trojan maids that won a little joy, Bidden to die on foeman's tomb before the walls of Troy!

Who died, and never had to bear the sifting lot's award, Whose slavish body never touched the bed of victor lord!

We from our burning fatherland carried o'er many a sea, Of Achillaean offspring's pride the yoke-fellow must be, Must bear the childbed of a slave: thereafter he, being led To Leda's child Hermione and that Laconian bed, To Helenus his very thrall me very thrall gave o'er: But there Orestes, set on fire by all the love he bore 330 His ravished wife, and mad with hate, comes on him unaware Before his fathers' altar-stead and slays him then and there.

By death of Neoptolemus his kingdom's leavings came To Helenus, who called the fields Chaonian fields by name, And all the land Chaonia, from Chaon of Troy-town; And Pergamus and Ilian burg on ridgy steep set down.

What winds, what fates gave thee the road to cross the ocean o'er?

Or what of G.o.ds hath borne thee on unwitting to our sh.o.r.e?

What of the boy Ascanius? lives he and breathes he yet?

Whom unto thee when Troy yet was---- 340 The boy then, of his mother lost, hath he a thought of her?

Do him aeneas, Hector gone, father and uncle, stir, To valour of the ancient days, and great hearts' glorious gain?'

Such tale she poured forth, weeping sore, and long she wept in vain Great floods of tears: when lo, from out the city draweth nigh Lord Helenus the Priam-born midst mighty company, And knows his kin, and joyfully leads onward to his door, Though many a tear 'twixt broken words the while doth he outpour.

So on; a little Troy I see feigned from great Troy of fame, A Pergamus, a sandy brook that hath the Xanthus name, 350 On threshold of a Scaean gate I stoop to lay a kiss.

Soon, too, all Teucrian folk are wrapped in friendly city's bliss, And them the King fair welcomes in amid his cloisters broad, And they amidmost of the hall the bowls of Bacchus poured, The meat was set upon the gold, and cups they held in hand.

So pa.s.sed a day and other day, until the gales command The sails aloft, and canvas swells with wind from out the South: Therewith I speak unto the seer, such matters in my mouth: 'O Troy-born, O G.o.ds' messenger, who knowest Phoebus' will, The tripods and the Clarian's bay, and what the stars fulfil, 360 And tongues of fowl, and omens brought by swift foreflying wing, Come, tell the tale! for of my way a happy heartening thing All shrines have said, and all the G.o.ds have bid me follow on To Italy, till outland sh.o.r.es, far off, remote were won: Alone Celaeno, Harpy-fowl, new dread of fate set forth, Unmeet to tell, and bade us fear the grimmest day of wrath, And ugly hunger. How may I by early perils fare?

Or doing what may I have might such toil to overbear?'

So Helenus, when he hath had the heifers duly slain, Prays peace of G.o.ds, from hallowed head he doffs the bands again, 370 And then with hand he leadeth me, O Phoebus, to thy door, My fluttering soul with all thy might of G.o.dhead shadowed o'er.

There forth at last from G.o.d-loved mouth the seer this word did send:

'O G.o.ddess-born, full certainly across the sea ye wend By mightiest bidding, such the lot the King of G.o.ds hath found All fateful; so he rolls the world, so turns its order round.

Few things from many will I tell that thou the outland sea May'st sail the safer, and at last make land in Italy; The other things the Parcae still ban Helenus to wot, Saturnian Juno's will it is that more he utter not. 380 First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem'st anigh, Thinking to make in little s.p.a.ce the haven close hereby, Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land; And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower's wand.

On plain of that Ausonian salt your s.h.i.+ps must stray awhile, And thou must see the nether meres, aeaean Circe's isle, Ere thou on earth a.s.sured and safe thy city may'st set down.

I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown.

When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh, And 'neath the holm-oaks of the sh.o.r.e shalt see a great sow lie, 390 That e'en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground She lieth white, with piglings white their mother's dugs around,-- That earth shall be thy city's place, there rest from toil is stored.

Nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board, The Fates shall find a way thereto; Apollo called shall come.

But flee these lands of Italy, this sh.o.r.e so near our home, That was.h.i.+ng of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks; For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks.

There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build; And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled 400 With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small, Now by that Meliboean duke fenced round with mighty wall.

Moreover, when your s.h.i.+ps have crossed the sea, and there do stay, And on the altars raised thereto your vows ash.o.r.e ye pay, Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye, Lest 'twixt you and the holy fires ye light to G.o.d on high Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill.

Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this wors.h.i.+p thus fulfil, And let thy righteous sons of sons such fas.h.i.+on ever mind.

But when, gone forth, to Sicily thou comest on the wind, 410 And when Pelorus' narrow sea is widening all away, Your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay, How long soe'er ye reach about: flee right-hand sh.o.r.e and wave.

In time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave, So much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail.

It split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale, Had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood Hesperia's side from Italy, and field and city stood Drawn back on either sh.o.r.e, along a sundering sea-race strait.

There Scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate 420 Charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown Sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown Thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine.

But Scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine; With face thrust forth she draweth s.h.i.+ps on to that stony bed; Manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fas.h.i.+oned Down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale, And unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin's tail.

'Tis better far to win about Pachynus, outer ness Of Sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness, 430 Than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den, And hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again.

Now furthermore if Helenus in anything have skill, Or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth Apollo fill, Of one thing, G.o.ddess-born, will I forewarn thee over all, And spoken o'er and o'er again my word on thee shall fall: The mighty Juno's G.o.dhead first let many a prayer seek home; To Juno sing your vows in joy, with suppliant gifts o'ercome That Lady of all Might; and so, Trinacria overpast, Shalt thou be sped to Italy victorious at the last. 440 When there thou com'st and c.u.mae's town amidst thy way hast found, The Holy Meres, Avernus' woods fruitful of many a sound, There the wild seer-maid shalt thou see, who in a rock-hewn cave Singeth of fate, and letteth leaves her names and tokens have: But whatso song upon those leaves the maiden seer hath writ She ordereth duly, and in den of live stone leaveth it: There lie the written leaves unmoved, nor s.h.i.+ft their ordered rows.

But when the hinge works round, and thence a light air on them blows, Then, when the door doth disarray among the frail leaves bear, To catch them fluttering in the cave she never hath a care, 450 Nor will she set them back again nor make the song-words meet; So folk unanswered go their ways and loathe the Sibyl's seat.

But thou, count not the cost of time that there thou hast to spend; Although thy fellows blame thee sore, and length of way to wend Call on thy sails, and thou may'st fill their folds with happy gale, Draw nigh the seer, and strive with prayers to have her holy tale; Beseech her sing, and that her words from willing tongue go free: So reverenced shall she tell thee tale of folk of Italy And wars to come; and how to 'scape, and how to bear each ill, And with a happy end at last thy wandering shall fulfil. 460 Now is this all my tongue is moved to tell thee lawfully: Go, let thy deeds Troy's mightiness exalt above the sky!'

So when the seer from loving mouth such words as this had said, Then gifts of heavy gold and gifts of carven tooth he bade Be borne a-s.h.i.+pboard; and our keels he therewithal doth stow With Dodonaean kettle-ware and silver great enow, A coat of hooked woven mail and triple golden chain, A helm with n.o.ble towering crest crowned with a flowing mane, The arms of Pyrrhus: gifts most meet my father hath withal; And steeds he gives and guides he gives, 470 Fills up the tale of oars, and arms our fellows to their need.

Anchises still was bidding us meanwhile to have a heed Of setting sail, nor with the wind all fair to make delay; To whom with words of wors.h.i.+p now doth Phoebus' servant say: 'Anchises, thou whom Venus' bed hath made so glorious, Care of the G.o.ds, twice caught away from ruin of Pergamus, Lo, there the Ausonian land for thee, set sail upon the chase: Yet needs must thou upon the sea glide by its neighbouring face.

Far off is that Ausonia yet that Phoebus open lays.

Fare forth, made glad with pious son! why tread I longer ways 480 Of speech, and stay the rising South with words that I would tell?'

And therewithal Andromache, sad with the last farewell, Brings for Ascanius raiment wrought with picturing wool of gold, And Phrygian coat; nor will she have our honour wax acold, But loads him with the woven gifts, and such word sayeth she: 'Take these, fair boy; keep them to be my hands' last memory, The tokens of enduring love thy younger days did win From Hector's wife Andromache, the last gifts of thy kin.

O thou, of my Astyanax the only image now!

Such eyes he had, such hands he had, such countenance as thou, 490 And now with thee were growing up in equal tale of years.'

Then I, departing, spake to them amid my rising tears: 'Live happy! Ye with fortune's game have nothing more to play, While we from side to side thereof are hurried swift away.

Your rest hath blossomed and brought forth; no sea-field shall ye till, Seeking the fields of Italy that fade before you still.

Ye see another Xanthus here, ye see another Troy, Made by your hands for better days mehopes, and longer joy: And soothly less it lies across the pathway of the Greek, If ever I that Tiber flood and Tiber fields I seek 500 Shall enter, and behold the walls our folk shall win of fate.

Twin cities some day shall we have, and folks confederate, Epirus and Hesperia; from Darda.n.u.s each came, One fate had each: them shall we make one city and the same, One Troy in heart: lo, let our sons of sons' sons see to it!'

Past nigh Ceraunian mountain-sides thence o'er the sea we flit, Whence the sea-way to Italy the shortest may be made.

But in the meanwhile sets the sun, the dusk hills lie in shade, And, choosing oar-wards, down we lie on bosom of the land So wished for: by the water-side and on the dry sea-strand 510 We tend our bodies here and there; sleep floodeth every limb.

But ere the hour-bedriven night in midmost orb did swim, Nought slothful Palinurus rose, and wisdom strives to win Of all the winds: with eager ear the breeze he drinketh in; He noteth how through silent heaven the stars soft gliding fare, Arcturus, the wet Hyades, and either Northern Bear, And through and through he searcheth out Orion girt with gold.

So when he sees how everything a peaceful sky foretold, He bloweth clear from off the p.o.o.p, and we our campment s.h.i.+ft, And try the road and spread abroad our sail-wings to the lift. 520

And now, the stars all put to flight, Aurora's blushes grow, When we behold dim fells afar and long lands lying low, --E'en Italy. Achates first cries out on Italy; To Italy our joyous folk glad salutation cry.

Anchises then a mighty bowl crowned with a garland fair, And filled it with unwatered wine and called the G.o.ds to hear, High standing on the lofty deck: 'O G.o.ds that rule the earth and sea, and all the tides of storm, Make our way easy with the wind, breathe on us kindly breath!'

Then riseth up the longed-for breeze, the haven openeth 530 As nigh we draw, and on the cliff a fane of Pallas shows: Therewith our fellow-folk furl sail and sh.o.r.eward turn the prows.

Bow-wise the bight is hollowed out by eastward-setting flood, But over-foamed by salt-sea spray thrust out its twin horns stood, While it lay hidden; tower-like rocks let down on either hand Twin arms of rock-wall, and the fane lies backward from the stand.