and Acestes’ famous name had roused the people
round about, and a happy crowd had thronged the shore,
some to behold Aeneas’ men, some set to compete as well.
And first the trophies are placed on view amid the field:
sacred tripods, leafy crowns and palms, the victors’ prizes,
armor, robes dyed purple, and gold and silver bars.
A trumpet blast rings out from a mound midfield—
let the games begin!
For the first event, enter,
four great ships, well matched with their heavy oars,
picked from the whole armada. Mnestheus commands the Dragon
swift with her eager crew, Mnestheus soon of Italy,
soon from him the Memmian clan would take its name.
Gyas commands the huge Chimaera, a hulk as huge
as a city—Trojans in three tiers drive her on,
churning as one man at three ranked sweeps of oars.
Sergestus, who gives his name to the Sergian house,
rides the tremendous vessel Centaur. Cloanthus
who bred your line, you Roman Cluentius, sails
the bright blue Scylla.
Far out in the offing,
fronting the foaming coastline, looms a rock. At times,
when the winter’s Northwest winds blot out the stars,
it’s all submerged, the breakers thunder it under.
In calm weather, up from the gentle swells it lifts
a quiet, level face, a favorite haunt of cormorants
basking in the sun. Here the good commander Aeneas
staked an ilex, leaves and all, as a turning-post
where crews would know to wheel their ships around
and begin the long pull home. They next draw lots
for starting places, captains stand on the sterns,
their purple-and-gold regalia gleaming far afield.
And the oarsmen don their wreaths of poplar leaves,
oil poured on their naked shoulders makes them glisten.
They crowd the thwarts, their arms tense at the oars,
ears tense for the signal; hearts pounding, racing
with nerves high-strung and a grasping lust for glory.
At last a piercing blare of the trumpet—suddenly all
the ships burst forth from the line, no stopping them now,
the shouts of the sailors hit the skies, the oarsmen’s arms
pull back to their chests as they whip the swells to foam.
Still dead even, they plow their furrows, ripping the sea
wide open with thrashing oars and cleaving triple beaks.
Never so swift the teams in a two-horse chariot race
breaking headlong out of the gates to take the field,
not even when charioteers lay on the rippling reins,
leaning into the whip-stroke, giving the teams full head.
Resounding applause, cries of partisans fill the woods
and the curving bayshore rolls the sound around
and the pelted hillsides volley back the roar.
Amid this din and confusion Gyas darts ahead,
leading the field at the start to race across the surf—
next Cloanthus, better oared but his pine hulk slows him down—
next, at an equal gap, the Dragon and Centaur fight it
out for third, and now the Dragon has it and now
the huge Centaur edges her out, now they’re even,
prow to prow, cleaving the salt sea with long keels.
Soon they’re nearing the rock, swerving into the turn
when Gyas, holding the lead, still victor at mid-course,
shouts out to his helmsman Menoetes: “Where are you heading?
Why so hard to starboard? Hold course! Hug the coast!
Your oars should barely shave that rock to port!
Leave the deep sea to the rest!”
Clear commands
but Menoetes, fearing some hidden reefs, veers
his prow to starboard, to open water, and Gyas
shouts again: “Where now? Still off course!
Head for the rocks, Menoetes!”
And glancing back,
watch, Cloanthus right in his wake—grazing past to port
on an inside track between Gyas’ ship and the booming reefs—
races round into safe water, leaving the mark astern.
Young Gyas blazed in indignation deep to his bones,
tears streamed down his cheeks, he flings to the winds
all care for self-respect and the safety of his crew
and pitches the sluggish Menoetes off the stern,
headlong into the sea and takes the helm himself.
His own pilot now, he spurs his oarsmen, turning
the rudder hard to port and heads for home.
Old Menoetes, dead weight in his sodden clothes,
struggling up at last from the depths to break the surface,
clambered onto the rock and perched there high and dry.
The Trojan crews had laughed when he took the plunge,
then when he floundered round and now they laugh
as he retches spews of brine from his heaving chest.
A happy hope flared up in the last two captains now,
Sergestus and Mnestheus, to pass the flagging Gyas.
Sergestus gains the lead as they near the rock
but not by a whole keel’s length—his prow’s ahead
but the Dragon’s pressing prow overlaps his stern,
so Mnestheus, striding the gangplank, spurs his crew:
“Now put your backs in the oars, you comrades of Hector!
You are the ones I chose, my troops at Troy’s last stand.
Now show the nerve, the heart you showed on Libya’s reefs,
the Ionian Sea, the waves at Malea that attacked us!
It’s not for first place now Mnestheus strives,
not for victory—
Oh, if only—
No, let Neptune
pick the winner he wants but we must not come last,
what shame! Just win that victory—oh, my Trojans,
spare us that disgrace!”
They bend hard to the oars
and pull for all they’re worth, and the bronze hull shivers
under their massive strokes and the deep sweeps by beneath them—
gasping for breath, their chests wracked, mouths parched, sweat
rivering down their backs, but blind chance brings that crew
the prize they yearn for. Wild with striving, Sergestus—
wheeling his prow toward the rock, risking an inside track,
the dangerous straits—crashes into the jutting reefs,
unlucky man. The struck crag shudders, oars slamming
against its riptooth edges split, and the prow driven
onto the rock, hangs there, hoisted into the air.
The crew springs up, shouting, trying to backwater,
unshipping their iron pikes and sharp-tipped punting poles,
they scramble to rescue splintered oars from the surf.
Mnestheus riding high, the higher for his success—
oars at a racing stroke, wind at his beck and call—
shoots into open water, homing down the coast.
Swift as a dove, flushed in fear from a cave
where it nests its darling chicks in crannies,
a sudden burst of wings and out its home it flies,
terrified, off into open fields and next it skims
through the bright, quiet air and never beats a wing.
So Mnestheus, so his Dragon speeds ahead, cleaving
the swells on the homestretch, so she flies along
on her own forward drive.
First he leaves astern
Sergestus struggling still at his beetling rock,
splashing in shallows, crying for help—no use—
as he studies ho
w to race with shattered oars.
Next Mnestheus goes for Gyas, the huge Chimaera
stripped of her helmsman, giving up the lead.
Now nearing the finish, that left one, Cloanthus—
Mnestheus goes for him all-out, urging his crews
to give it all they’ve got.
Roars of the crowd re-echo,
cheering on his challenge, the air resounds with cries.
One crew, stung by the shame of losing victory now
with glory won, would trade their lives for fame.
But Mnestheus and his crew, fired by their success,
can just about win the day because they think they can.
They were drawing abreast, perhaps they’d seize the prize
if Cloanthus had not flung his arms to the sea and poured
his prayers to the gods and begged them to hear his vows:
“You gods, you lords of the waves I’m racing over here,
I’ll gladly steady a pure white bull at your altars,
there on shore, and pay my vows—scatter its innards
over the salt swell and tip out streams of wine!”
So he prayed, and far in the depths they heard him,
all the Nereids, Phorcus’ chorus, virgin Panopea
and Father Portunus himself, with his own mighty hand,
drove the racing Scylla swifter than Southern winds
or a winging arrow, speeding toward the shore
to find her berth in the good deep-water harbor.
Then
the son of Anchises summons all together, true to custom.
A herald’s ringing voice declares Cloanthus the victor
and Aeneas crowns his brows with fresh green laurel.
He presents the prizes to each ship’s crew, some wine,
three bulls of their choice and a heavy silver bar
and for each ship’s captain lays on gifts of honor.
To the winner a cloak of braided gold that’s fringed
with twin ripples of Meliboean crimson running round it,
and woven into its weft, Ganymede, prince of woody Ida
spins his javelins, wearing out the racing stags—
he’s breathless, hot on the hunt, so true to life
as the eagle that bears Jove’s lightning sweeps him
up from Ida into the heavens, pinned in its talons
while old guardsmen reach for the stars in vain
and the watchdogs’ savage howling fills the air.
Then to the man whose prowess won him second place
he gives a coat of mail, glinting with burnished links
and triple-meshed in gold, a victor’s trophy he himself
had dragged from Demoleos, killed near Simois’ rapids
under Troy’s high wall. This armor he gives Mnestheus,
a fighter’s badge of honor to shield him well in war.
Two aides-de-camp, Phegeus and Sagaris, hefting it
on their shoulders now, could hardly bear it off
with all its heavy plies, yet Demoleos wore it once,
fully armed as he ran down Trojan stragglers. Aeneas
presents a pair of brazen cauldrons for third prize
and two cups of hammered silver, ridged in sharp relief.
Now with the gifts presented, all were moving off,
proud of their prizes, scarlet ribbons binding their brows
when here comes Sergestus, bringing in his ship. He’d barely
worked her free of the ruthless rock with craft and effort,
one bank of her oars gone, one in splinters. A laughingstock,
shorn of glory, she came crawling in . . . Like a snake caught,
as they often are, on a causeway, crushed by a bronze wheel
or heavy rock flung by a traveler—trampled, left half-dead,
trying to slip away, writhing in gnarled coils, no hope.
Part fighting mad, its eyes blazing, its hissing head
puffed high—part crippled, wounds cutting its pace,
struggling in knots, twitching, twisting round itself.
So the ship limped in, oars laboring, slowly, and still
she spreads her sails and enters the harbor, canvas taut.
Aeneas, glad that the ship is salvaged, crew restored,
gives Sergestus the prize that he had promised:
a slave girl, Pholoë, born of Cretan stock
and hardly inept at Minerva’s works of hand,
nursing twins at her breast.
The ship-race over,
good Aeneas strides to the grassy level field
ringed by hills with woodland sloping down
to a vale that formed an enormous round arena.
There he went, the hero leading many thousands,
and took his own seat on a built-up platform
mid the growing crowd. And here, for those
who chanced to long for a breathless foot-race now,
Aeneas stirs their spirits, setting out the prizes.
Trojans mixed with Sicilians come from all directions,
with Nisus and Euryalus out in front. Euryalus radiant,
famed for the bloom of youth—Nisus, for the pure love
he devoted to the boy. Following them, Diores,
sprung from the stock of Priam’s royal house.
Then Patron flanked by Salius, an Acarnanian,
one, and one an Arcadian born of Tegean blood.
Then two Sicilian youngsters, Helymus, Panopes,
hunters used to the woods, and friends of old Acestes,
and many others too, their names now lost
in the dark depths of time.
Among the crowds,
Aeneas addressed them all with: “Hear me now,
mark my words and fill your hearts with joy.
Not one of you leaves and lacks a gift from me.
I’ll give two Cretan arrows with polished iron points
and a double axe embossed with knobs of silver.
The same honors await you, one and all.
But prize trophies go to the three front-runners,
brows crowned with the wreaths of braided golden olive.
First, the winner, shall have a horse with dazzling trappings.
The second, an Amazon’s quiver bristling Thracian arrows,
slung from a sweeping sword-belt starred with gold
and clasped with a brilliant jewel.
The third can leave content with this Greek helmet.”
Soon as said they take their mark, ready, set—
a sudden signal—
go!—
and they break from the start,
pouring over the course like a stormcloud streaking on,
all eyes fixed on the goal, with Nisus far in the lead,
shooting out of the tight pack and faster than wind or
the winged lightning—second, second at quite a gap,
comes Salius—next, and a good long way behind,
Euryalus coming third, and after Euryalus, Helymus,
then Diores flying hot on his heels and closer, closing,
watch, breathing over his shoulder and if there had been
more track to cover he would have caught and passed him
or run him a dead heat. Now down the stretch they come,
the exhausted runners closing on the goal when all at once
unlucky Nisus skids on a slick of blood they’d chanced to spill,
killing bullocks, soaking the turf and green grass surface,
here the racer, elated—victory won—pressing the pace
he stumbles, pitching face-first in the filthy dung
and blood of victims. But he won’t forget Euryalus,
his great love, never, up from the slime he struggles,
flings himself in Salius’ path to send him spinning,
reeling backward, splayed out on the beaten track
as Euryalus flashes past, thanks to his f
riend
he takes the lead—the victor flying along,
sped by the roaring crowd, with Helymus next
and Diores wins third prize.
But at this, Salius
bursts out with howls that ring through the huge arena,
round from the front-row elders to the crowd—a foul
had robbed him clean of the prize he wanted back.
True, but Euryalus has the people on his side,
plus modest tears and his own gallant ways,
favored all the more for his handsome build.
And Diores backs him up with loud appeals:
he finished third, but no third prize for him
if the victor’s prize returned to Salius’ hands.
“Your prizes are yours,” said captain Aeneas firmly,
“they all stand fast, young comrades. No one alters
our ranked list of winners now. Just let me
offer a consolation prize to a luckless man,
a friend without a fault.”
And with that,
he handed Salius a giant African lion’s hide,
a great weight with its shaggy mane and gilded claws.
“If losers win such prizes,” Nisus erupted now,
“and the ones who trip, such pity—what gift
will you give to Nisus worth his salt? Why,
I clearly had earned the crown for first prize
if the same bad luck that leveled Salius had not
knocked me down!” And with each word he points
to the sopping muck that fouled his face and limbs.
The fatherly captain smiled down at his friend
and had them fetch a shield, Didymaon’s work
the Greeks had torn from Neptune’s sacred gate.
This gleaming trophy he gives the fine young runner.
Then with the racing over, the prizes handed out,
“Now,” Aeneas announces, “let any man with heart,
with the fire in his chest, come forward—
put up your fists, strap on the rawhide gloves.”
And he sets afield a pair of trophies for the boxing:
for the winner a bull with gilded horns and wreaths,
a sword and a burnished helm to console the loser.
No delay. Instantly there he stands, that immense man,
Dares, jaw thrust out, tremendous in all his power.
The crowd’s abuzz as he hauls himself to his feet,
the one man who could trade blows with Paris,
Dares who, by the mound where great Hector lies,
crushed the champion Butes, that gigantic hulk,
a braggart who fought as Amycus’ Bebrycian kin—
he laid him out on the yellow sand to gasp his last.
The Aeneid Page 19