Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

by Frank Justus Miller

Again on board, they sail for many stormy days until they reach the islands of the Strophades. Here dwell the Harpies, loathsome human birds, whose touch is defilement and whose speech is bitter with railing. Yet even here Æneas finds a prophecy of his destiny. Offended by the onslaught of the Trojans, Celæno, one of the Harpy band, thus reviles and prophesies:

What, is it war for the oxen you have slain and the bullocks you have felled, true sons of Laomedon? Is it war that you are going to make on us, to expel us, blameless Harpies, from our ancestral realm? Take, then, into your minds these my words, and print them there. The prophecy which the Almighty Sire imparted to Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo to me, I, the chief of the Furies, make known to you. For Italy, I know, you are crowding all sail: well, the winds shall be at your call as you go to Italy, and you shall be free to enter its harbors; but you shall not build walls around your fated city, before fell hunger and your murderous wrong against us drive you to gnaw and eat up your very tables.

Conington.

Hastily Æneas leaves this place with an earnest prayer that this dire threat may be averted. Past green Zacynthos, Dulichium, and craggy Neritos they go, past Ithaca, cursing it for crafty Ulysses' sake, and reach the rocky shores of Actium; then on past the Phæacian land to Buthrotum in Epirus, on the western shore of Greece. He is astounded and delighted to find that the strange fortunes of war have set Helenus, son of Priam, here as king, with Andromache, wife of the lamented Hector, as his queen. We may be sure that the meeting was sweet and bitter too for all the exiles.

They pass many days in hospitable intercourse, recalling the vanished life of their old Phrygian home, and recounting the checkered experiences of their recent years. And now, one bright morning, the breezes call loudly to the sails, and Æneas would pursue his way. He knows by now that Italy is the object of his quest, but how he may reach the destined spot in that vast stretch of coast, and what wanderings still await him, he does not know. But Helenus, his host, is famed as a diviner of hidden things, and to him Æneas appeals.

Helenus first warns his friend that he must shun that part of Italy which seems so near at hand, for on this eastern shore the Greeks have many cities; but he must sail far around, until he reach the farthest shore. Above all, let him not try to speed his course through the straits of Sicily, for here the dread monsters Scylla and Charybdis keep the way. They shall at last come to "Cumæ on the western shore, and the haunted lake, and the woods that rustle over Avernus," and there shall they learn further of their fates from the inspired prophetess of Apollo's shrine. Their final resting-place, where heaven shall permit them to found their city and end their wanderings, by this strange token they shall know—a huge white sow with thirty young, lying at ease beneath a spreading oak. "Such," says Helenus, "are the counsels which it is given you to receive from my lips. Go on your way, and by your actions lift to heaven the greatness of Troy."

With exchange of gifts, tokens of mutual love, sad at parting, but with high thoughts of glorious destiny, the royal pair speed their guests on their way. One reach to the northward, a night on the sandy shore, an early embarkation in the misty dusk of the morning, and Æneas turns his prows once more to the unknown west.

And now the stars were fled, and Aurora was just reddening in the sky, when in the distance we see the dim hills and low plains of Italy. "Italy!" Achates was the first to cry. Italy, our crews welcome with a shout of rapture. Then, my father Anchises wreathed a mighty bowl with a garland, and filled it with wine, and called on the gods, standing upon the tall stern: "Ye powers that rule sea and land and weather, waft us a fair wind and a smooth passage, and breathe auspiciously!"

Conington.

They make a hasty landing on this nearest shore, pay solemn tribute to Juno as Helenus had bidden them, and speeding across the great curving bay of Tarentum, hug fast the shores of southern Italy. Barely escaping the dangerous straits of Sicily, they pass the night upon the shore near Ætna, whose awful rumblings, whirlwinds of glowing ashes, and belched up avalanches of molten stone, appall their hearts. This night of dread ends in a morning of horror, for there, upon the mountainside, they see the Cyclopean monsters whom Ulysses and his band had so narrowly escaped. Hastily they push away from this dread coast, and sail clear around to western Sicily, where Æneas' aged father dies, and is buried in the friendly realm of King Acestes.

From here one more short course would have brought them to their journey's end; but Juno's implacable hate had stirred the winds against them, and by that dark storm they had been driven far away and wrecked on the coast of Africa.

Thus father Æneas, alone, amid the hush of all around, was recounting heaven's destined dealings, and telling of his voyages; and now at length he was silent, made an end, and took his rest.

Conington.