Complete Works of Virgil

by Virgil

  Had bidden him, and whitherwise his heart thereto was moved.

  No tarrying there was therein, Acestes gainsaid nought;

  They write the mothers on the roll; thither a folk is brought,

  Full willing hearts, who nothing crave the great reward of fame:

  But they themselves shape thwarts anew; and timbers gnawed by flame

  Make new within their ships again, and oars and rudders fit.

  A little band it is by tale, but valour lives in it.

  Meanwhile Æneas marketh out the city with the plough,

  And, portioning the houses out, bids Troy and Ilium grow:

  Therewith Acestes, Trojan king, joys in his lordship fair;

  Sets forth the court, and giveth laws to fathers gathered there:

  Then on the head of Eryx huge a house that neareth heaven

  To Venus of Idalia is reared: a priest is given

  And holy grove wide spread around, where old Anchises lay.

  Now all the folk for nine days’ space have made them holyday

  And worshipped God; and quiet winds have lowly laid the main,

  And ever gentle Southern breath woos to the deep again:

  Then all along the hollow shore ariseth weeping great,

  And ‘twixt farewells and many a kiss a night and day they wait:

  Yea e’en the mothers, yea e’en they to whom so hard and drear

  The sea had seemed, a dreadful name they had no heart to bear,

  Are fain to go, are fain to take all toil the way may find.

  Whom good Æneas solaceth with friendly words and kind,

  As to Acestes’ kindred heart weeping he giveth them.

  Three calves to Eryx then he bids slay on the ocean’s hem;

  To wind and weather an ewe lamb; then biddeth cast aloose:

  And he himself, begarlanded with olive clippèd close,

  Stands, cup in hand, on furthest prow, and casts upon the brine

  The inner meat, and poureth forth the flowing of the wine.

  They gather way; springs up astern the fair and following breeze;

  The fellows strive in smiting brine and sweep the level seas.

  But meanwhile Venus, sorely stirred by cares and all unrest,

  Hath speech of Neptune, pouring forth complaining from her breast:

  “The cruel wrath that Juno bears, and heart insatiate,

  Drive me, O Neptune, prayer-fulfilled upon thy power to wait:

  She softeneth not by lapse of days nor piety’s increase,

  Nor yielding unto Jove and Fate from troubling will she cease.

  ’Tis not enough to tear away from heart of Phrygian folk

  Their city by her cruel hate; nor with all ills to yoke

  Troy’s remnant; but its ash and bones through death she followeth on.

  What! doth her own heart know the deed that all this wrath hath won?

  Be thou my witness how of late she stirred up suddenly

  Wild tumult of the Libyan sea! all waters with the sky

  She mingled, trusting all in vain to storm of Æolus:

  This in thy very realm she dared.

  E’en now mad hearts to Trojan wives by wickedness she gave,

  And foully burned his ships; and him with crippled ship-host drave

  To leave his fellow-folk behind upon an outland shore.

  I pray thee let the remnant left sail safe thine ocean o’er,

  And let them come where into sea Laurentian Tiber falls,

  If right I ask, and unto these Fate giveth fateful walls.”

  Then Saturn’s son, the sea-tamer, gave forth such words as these:

  “’Tis utter right, O Cytherean, to trust thee to my seas,

  Whence thou wert born; and I myself deserve no less; e’en I,

  Who oft for thee refrain the rage of maddened sea and sky.

  Nor less upon the earth my care Æneas did embrace;

  Xanthus and Simoïs witness it! — When, following up the chace,

  The all-unheartened host of Troy ‘gainst Troy Achilles bore,

  And many a thousand gave to death; choked did the rivers roar

  Nor any way might Xanthus find to roll his flood to sea:

  Æneas then in hollow cloud I caught away, when he

  Would meet Pelides’ might with hands and Gods not strong enow.

  Yea, that was when from lowest base I wrought to overthrow

  The walls of that same Troy forsworn my very hands had wrought.

  And now cast all thy fear away, my mind hath shifted nought;

  Avernus’ haven shall he reach, e’en as thou deemest good,

  And one alone of all his folk shall seek amidst the flood;

  One head shall pay for all the rest.”

  So when these words had brought to peace the Goddess’ joyful heart,

  The Father yokes his steeds with gold, and bridles the wild things

  With o’erfoamed bit, and loose in hand the rein above them flings,

  And light in coal-blue car he flies o’er topmost of the sea:

  The waves sink down, the heaped main lays his waters peacefully

  Before the thunder of his wheels; from heaven all cloud-flecks fail.

  Lo, diverse bodies of his folk; lo, many a mighty whale;

  And Glaucus’ ancient fellowship, Palæmon Ino’s son,

  And Tritons swift, and all the host that Phorcus leadeth on;

  Maid Panopea and Melite, Cymodoce the fair,

  Nesæa, Spio, and Thalia, with Thetis leftward bear.

  Now to Æneas’ overstrained heart the kindly joy and soft

  Sinks deep: herewith he biddeth men raise all the masts aloft

  At swiftest, and along the yards to spread the sails to wind:

  So all sheet home together then; then leftward with one mind

  They tack; then tack again to right: the yard-horns up in air

  They shift and shift, while kindly winds seaward the ship-host bear.

  But first before all other keels did Palinurus lead

  The close array, and all were charged to have his course in heed.

  And now the midmost place of heaven had dewy night drawn nigh,

  And ‘neath the oars on benches hard scattered the shipmen lie,

  Who all the loosened limbs of them to gentle rest had given;

  When lo, the very light-winged Sleep stooped from the stars of heaven,

  Thrusting aside the dusky air and cleaving night atwain:

  The sackless Palinure he sought with evil dreams and vain.

  So on the high poop sat the God as Phorbas fashionèd,

  And as he sat such-like discourse from out his mouth he shed:

  “Iasian Palinure, unasked the waves our ship-host bear;

  Soft blow the breezes steadily; the hour for rest is here:

  Lay down thine head, steal weary eyes from toil a little space,

  And I will do thy deeds awhile and hold me in thy place.”

  But Palinure with scarce-raised eyes e’en such an answer gave:

  “To gentle countenance of sea and quiet of the wave

  Deem’st thou me dull? would’st have me trow in such a monster’s truth?

  And shall I mine Æneas trust to lying breeze forsooth,

  I, fool of peaceful heaven and sea so many times of old?”

  So saying to the helm he clung, nor ever left his hold,

  And all the while the stars above his eyen toward them drew.

  But lo, the God brought forth a bough wet with Lethean dew,

  And sleepy with the might of Styx, and shook it therewithal

  Over his brow, and loosed his lids delaying still to fall:

  But scarce in first of stealthy sleep his limbs all loosened lay,

  When, weighing on him, did he tear a space of stern away,

  And rolled him, helm and wrack and all, into the flowing wave

  Headlong, and crying oft in vain for fellowship to save:

  Then Sleep himself ami
d thin air flew, borne upon the wing.

  No less the ship-host sails the sea, its safe way following

  Untroubled ‘neath the plighted word of Father Neptune’s mouth.

  So to the Sirens’ rocks they draw, a dangerous pass forsooth

  In yore agone, now white with bones of many a perished man.

  Thence ever roared the salt sea now as on the rocks it ran;

  And there the Father felt the ship fare wild and fitfully,

  Her helmsman lost; so he himself steered o’er the night-tide sea,

  Sore weeping; for his fellow’s end his inmost heart did touch:

  “O Palinure, that trowed the sky and soft seas overmuch,

  Now naked on an unknown shore thy resting-place shall be!”

  BOOK VI.

  ARGUMENT.

  ÆNEAS COMETH TO THE SIBYL OF CUMÆ, AND BY HER IS LED INTO THE UNDER-WORLD, AND THERE BEHOLDETH MANY STRANGE THINGS, AND IN THE END MEETETH HIS FATHER, ANCHISES, WHO TELLETH HIM OF THE DAYS TO COME.

  So spake he weeping, and his host let loose from every band,

  Until at last they draw anigh Cumæ’s Euboean strand.

  They turn the bows from off the main; the toothèd anchors’ grip

  Makes fast the keels; the shore is hid by many a curvèd ship.

  Hot-heart the youthful company leaps on the Westland’s shore;

  Part falleth on to seek them out the seed of fiery store

  That flint-veins hide; part runneth through the dwellings of the deer,

  The thicket steads, and each to each the hidden streams they bare.

  But good Æneas seeks the house where King Apollo bides,

  The mighty den, the secret place set far apart, that hides

  The awful Sibyl, whose great soul and heart he seeketh home,

  The Seer of Delos, showing her the hidden things to come:

  And so the groves of Trivia and golden house they gain.

  Now Dædalus, as tells the tale, fleeing from Minos’ reign,

  Durst trust himself to heaven on wings swift hastening, and swim forth

  Along the road ne’er tried before unto the chilly north;

  So light at last o’er Chalcis’ towers he hung amid the air,

  Then, come adown to earth once more, to thee he hallowed here,

  O Phoebus, all his wingèd oars, and built thee mighty fane:

  Androgeus’ death was on the doors; then paying of the pain

  By those Cecropians; bid, alas, each year to give in turn

  Seven bodies of their sons; — lo there, the lots drawn from the urn.

  But facing this the Gnosian land draws up amid the sea:

  There is the cruel bull-lust wrought, and there Pasiphaë

  Embraced by guile: the blended babe is there, the twiformed thing,

  The Minotaur, that evil sign of Venus’ cherishing;

  And there the tangled house and toil that ne’er should be undone:

  But ruth of Dædalus himself a queen’s love-sorrow won,

  And he himself undid the snare and winding wilderment.

  Guiding the blind feet with the thread. Thou, Icarus, wert blent

  Full oft with such a work be sure, if grief forbade it not;

  But twice he tried to shape in gold the picture of thy lot,

  And twice the father’s hands fell down.

  Long had their eyes read o’er

  Such matters, but Achates, now, sent on a while before,

  Was come with that Deïphobe, the Glaucus’ child, the maid

  Of Phoebus and of Trivia, and such a word she said:

  “The hour will have no tarrying o’er fair shows for idle eyes;

  ‘Twere better from an unyoked herd seven steers to sacrifice,

  And e’en so many hosts of ewes in manner due culled out.”

  She spake; her holy bidding then the warriors go about,

  Nor tarry: into temple high she calls the Teucrian men,

  Where the huge side of Cumæ’s rock is carven in a den,

  Where are an hundred doors to come, an hundred mouths to go,

  Whence e’en so many awful sounds, the Sibyl’s answers flow.

  But at the threshold cried the maid: “Now is the hour awake

  For asking — Ah, the God, the God!”

  And as the word she spake

  Within the door, all suddenly her visage and her hue

  Were changed, and all her sleekèd hair, and gasping breath she drew,

  And with the rage her wild heart swelled, and greater was she grown,

  Nor mortal-voiced; for breath of God upon her heart was blown

  As He drew nigher:

  “Art thou dumb of vows and prayers, forsooth,

  Trojan Æneas, art thou dumb? unprayed, the mighty mouth

  Of awe-mazed house shall open not.”

  Even such a word she said,

  Then hushed: through hardened Teucrian bones swift ran the chilly dread,

  And straight the king from inmost heart the flood of prayers doth pour:

  “Phoebus, who all the woe of Troy hast pitied evermore,

  Who Dardan shaft and Paris’ hands in time agone didst speed

  Against Achilles’ body there, who me withal didst lead

  Over the seas that go about so many a mighty land,

  Through those Massylian folks remote, and length of Syrtes’ sand,

  Till now I hold that Italy that ever drew aback;

  And now perchance a Trojan fate we, even we may lack.

  Ye now, O Gods and Goddesses, to whom a stumbling-stone

  Was Ilium in the days of old, and Dardan folk’s renown,

  May spare the folk of Pergamus. But thou, O holiest,

  O Maid that knowest things to come, grant thou the Latin rest

  To Teucrian men, and Gods of Troy, the straying way-worn powers!

  For surely now no realm I ask but such as Fate makes ours.

  To Phoebus and to Trivia then a temple will I raise,

  A marble world; in Phoebus’ name will hallow festal days:

  Thee also in our realm to be full mighty shrines await,

  There will I set thine holy lots and hidden words of fate

  Said to my folk, and hallow there well-chosen men for thee,

  O Holy One: But give thou not thy songs to leaf of tree,

  Lest made a sport to hurrying gales confusedly they wend;

  But sing them thou thyself, I pray!”

  Therewith his words had end.

  Meanwhile the Seer-maid, not yet tamed to Phoebus, raves about

  The cave, still striving from her breast to cast the godhead out;

  But yet the more the mighty God her mouth bewildered wears,

  Taming her wild heart, fashioning her soul with weight of fears.

  At last the hundred mighty doors fly open, touched of none,

  And on the air the answer floats of that foreseeing one:

  “O Thou, who dangers of the sea hast throughly worn away,

  Abides thee heavier toil of earth: the Dardans on a day

  Shall come to that Lavinian land, — leave fear thereof afar:

  Yet of their coming shall they rue. Lo, war, war, dreadful war!

  And Tiber bearing plenteous blood upon his foaming back.

  Nor Simoïs there, nor Xanthus’ stream, nor Dorian camp shall lack:

  Yea, once again in Latin land Achilles is brought forth,

  God-born no less: nor evermore shall mighty Juno’s wrath

  Fail Teucrian men. Ah, how shalt thou, fallen on evil days,

  To all Italian lands and folks thine hands beseeching raise!

  Lo, once again a stranger bride brings woeful days on Troy,

  Once more the wedding of a foe.

  But thou, yield not to any ill, but set thy face, and wend

  The bolder where thy fortune leads; the dawn of perils’ end,

  Whence least thou mightest look for it, from Greekish folk shall come.”

  Suchwise the Se
er of Cumæ sang from out her inner home

  The dreadful double words, wherewith the cavern moans again,

  As sooth amid the mirk she winds: Apollo shakes the rein

  Over the maddened one, and stirs the strings about her breast;

  But when her fury lulled awhile and maddened mouth had rest,

  Hero Æneas thus began:

  “No face of any care,

  O maiden, can arise on me in any wise unware:

  Yea, all have I forecast; my mind hath worn through everything.

  One prayer I pray, since this they call the gateway of the King

  Of Nether-earth, and Acheron’s o’erflow this mirky mere:

  O let me meet the eyes and mouth of my dead father dear;

  O open me the holy gate, and teach me where to go!

  I bore him on these shoulders once from midmost of the foe,

  From flame and weapons thousandfold against our goings bent;

  My yoke-fellow upon the road o’er every sea he went,

  ‘Gainst every threat of sea and sky a hardy heart he held,

  Though worn and feeble past decay and feebleness of eld.

  Yea, he it was who bade me wend, a suppliant, to thy door,

  And seek thee out: O holy one, cast thou thy pity o’er

  Father and son! All things thou canst, nor yet hath Hecaté

  Set thee to rule Avernus’ woods an empty Queen to be.

  Yea, Orpheus wrought with Thracian harp and strings of tuneful might

  To draw away his perished love from midmost of the night.

  Yea, Pollux, dying turn for turn, his brother borrowed well,

  And went and came the road full oft — Of Theseus shall I tell?

  Or great Alcides? Ah, I too from highest Jove am sprung.”

  Such were the words he prayed withal and round the altars clung:

  Then she fell speaking:

  “Man of Troy, from blood of Godhead grown,

  Anchises’ child, Avernus’ road is easy faring down;

  All day and night is open wide the door of Dis the black;

  But thence to gain the upper air, and win the footsteps back,

  This is the deed, this is the toil: Some few have had the might,

  Beloved by Jove the just, upborne to heaven by valour’s light,

  The Sons of God. ‘Twixt it and us great thicket fills the place

  That slow Cocytus’ mirky folds all round about embrace;

  But if such love be in thine heart, such yearning in thee lie,

  To swim twice o’er the Stygian mere and twice to see with eye

  Black Tartarus, and thou must needs this idle labour win,