XXVI. "All hail the speech. We quit this other home,
And leaving here a handful on the shore,
Spread sail and scour with hollow keel the foam.
The fleet was on mid ocean; land no more
Was visible, naught else above, before
But sky and sea, when overhead did loom
A storm-cloud, black as heaven itself, that bore
Dark night and wintry tempest in its womb,		226
And all the waves grew rough and shuddered with the gloom.
XXVII. "Winds roll the waters, and the great seas rise.
Dispersed we welter on the gulfs. Damp night
Has snatched with rain the heaven from our eyes,
And storm-mists in a mantle wrapt the light.
Flash after flash, and for a moment bright,
Quick lightnings rend the welkin. Driven astray
We wander, robbed of reckoning, reft of sight.
No difference now between the night and day		235
E'en Palinurus sees, nor recollects the way.
XXVIII. "Three days, made doubtful by the blinding gloom,
As many nights, when not a star is seen,
We wander on, uncertain of our doom.
At last the fourth glad daybreak clears the scene,
And rising land, and opening uplands green,
And rolling smoke at distance greet the view.
No longer tarrying; to our oars we lean.
Down drop the sails; in order ranged, each crew		244
Flings up the foam to heaven, and sweeps the sparkling blue.

XXIX. "Saved from the sea, the [Strophades] we gain,
So called in Greece, where dwells, with [Harpies,] dire
[Celæno,] in the vast Ionian main,
Since, forced from [Phineus'] palace to retire,
They fled their former banquet. Heavenly ire
Ne'er sent a pest more loathsome; ne'er were seen
Worse plagues to issue from the Stygian mire—
Birds maiden-faced, but trailing filth obscene,		253
With taloned hands and looks for ever pale and lean.
XXX. "The harbour gained, lo! herds of oxen bright
And goats untended browse the pastures fair.
We, sword in hand, make onset, and invite
The gods and Jove himself the spoil to share,
And piling couches, banquet on the fare.
When straight, down-swooping from the hills meanwhile
The Harpies flap their clanging wings, and tear
The food, and all with filthy touch defile,		262
And, mixt with screams, uprose a sickening stench and vile.
XXXI. "Once more, within a cavern screened from view,
Where circling trees a rustling shade supply,
The boards are spread, the altars blaze anew.
Back, from another quarter of the sky,
Dark-ambushed, round the clamorous Harpies fly
With taloned claws, and taste and taint the prey.
To arms I call my comrades, and defy
The loathsome brood to battle. They obey,		271
And swords and bucklers hide amid the grass away.
XXXII. "So when their screams descending fill the strand,
Misenus from his outlook sounds the fray.
All to the strange encounter, sword in hand,
Rush forth, these miscreants of the deep to slay.
No wounds they take, no weapon wins its way.
Swiftly they soar, all leaving, ere they go,
Their filthy traces on the half-gorged prey.
One perched, Celæno, on a rock, and lo,		280
Thus croaked the dismal seer her prophecy of woe.
XXXIII. "'War, too, Laomedon's twice-perjured race!
War do ye bring, our cattle stol'n and slain?
And unoffending Harpies would ye chase
Forth from their old, hereditary reign?
Mark then my words and in your breasts retain.
What Jove, the Sire omnipotent, of old
Revealed to Phoebus, and to me again
Phoebus Apollo at his hest foretold,		289
I now to thee and thine, the Furies' Queen, unfold.