The Aeneid of Virgil

by Virgil

Priam, forever unfortunate, had sent
This Polydorus on a secret mission,
Once, to the king of Thrace, with gold for hiding
When the king despaired of the siege and the city’s fortune.
And when Troy fell, and Fortune failed, the Thracian
Took Agamemnon’s side, broke off his duty,
Slew Polydorus, took the gold. There is nothing
To which men are not driven by that hunger.
Once over my fear, I summoned all the leaders,
My father, too; I told them of the portent,
Asked for their counsel. All agreed, a land
So stained with violence and violation
Was not for us to dwell in. Southward ho!
For Polydorus we made restoration
With funeral rites anew; earth rose again
Above his outraged mound; dark fillets made
The altar sorrowful, and cypress boughs,
And the Trojan women loosed their hair in mourning.
We offered milk in foaming bowls, and blood
Warm from the victims, so to rest the spirit,
And cry aloud the voice of valediction.

Then, when we trust the sea again, and the wind
Calls with a gentle whisper, we crowd the shores,
Launch ship again, leave port, the lands and cities
Fade out of sight once more.

There is an island
In the middle of the sea; the Nereids’ mother
And Neptune hold it sacred. It used to wander
By various coasts and shores, until Apollo,
In grateful memory, bound it fast, unmoving,
Unfearful of winds, between two other islands
Called Myconos and Gyaros. I sailed there;
Our band was weary, and the calmest harbor
Gave us safe haven. This was Apollo’s city;
We worshipped it on landing. And their king,
Priest of Apollo also, came to meet us,
His temples bound with holy fillets, and laurel.
His name was Anius; he knew Anchises
As an old friend, and gave us joyful welcome.

Apollo’s temple was built of ancient rock,
And there I prayed: ‘Grant us a home, Apollo,
Give walls to weary men, a race, a city
That will abide; preserve Troy’s other fortress,
The remnant left by the Greeks and hard Achilles.
Whom do we follow? where are we bidden to go
To find our settlement? An omen, father!’

I had scarcely spoken, when suddenly all things trembled,
The doors, and the laurel, and the whole mountain moved,
And the shrine was opened, and a rumbling sound
Was heard. We knelt, most humbly; and a voice
Came to our ears: ‘The land which brought you forth,
Men of endurance, will receive you home.
Seek out your ancient mother. There your house
Will rule above all lands, your children’s children,
For countless generations.’ Apollo spoke,
And we were joyful and confused, together:
What walls were those, calling the wanderers home?
My father, pondering history, made answer:
‘Hear, leaders; learn your hopes. There is a land
Called Crete, an island in the midst of the sea,
The cradle of our race; it has a mountain,
Ida, like ours, a hundred mighty cities,
Abounding wealth; if I recall correctly,
Teucer, our greatest father, came from there
To the Rhoetean shores to found his kingdom.
Ilium was nothing then, the towers of Troy
Undreamed of; men lived in the lowly valleys.
And Cybele, the Great Mother, came from Crete
With her clashing cymbals, and her grove of Ida
Was named from that original; the silence
Of her mysterious rites, the harnessed lions
Before her chariot wheels, all testify
To Cretan legend. Come, then, let us follow
Where the gods lead, and seek the Cretan kingdom.
It is not far; with Jupiter to favor,
Three days will see us there.’ With prayer, he made
Most solemn sacrifice, a bull to Neptune,
One to Apollo, to Winter a black heifer,
A white one for fair winds.

The story ran
That no one lived in Crete, Idomeneus
Having left his father’s kingdom, that the houses
Were empty now, dwellings vacated for us.
We sailed from Delos, flying over the water
Past Naxos, on whose heights the Bacchae revel,
Past green Donysa, snowy Paros, skimming
The passages between the sea-sown islands.
No crew would yield to another; there is shouting,
And the cheer goes up, ‘To Crete, and the land of our fathers!’
A stern wind follows, and we reach the land.
I am glad to be there; I lay out the walls
For the chosen city, name it Pergamea,
And the people are happy. Love your hearths, I told them,
Build high the citadel. The ships were steadied
On the dry beach, the young were busy ploughing,
Or planning marriage, and I was giving laws,
Assigning homes. But the weather turned, the sky
Grew sick, and from the tainted heaven came
Pestilence and pollution, a deadly year
For people and harvest. Those who were not dying
Dragged weary bodies around; the Dog-Star scorched
The fields to barrenness; grass withered, corn
Refused to ripen. ‘Over the sea again!’
My father said, ‘let us return to Delos,
Consult the oracle, implore Apollo
To show us kindliness; what end awaits
Our weary destiny, where does he bid us turn
For help in trouble?’

Sleep held all creatures over the earth at rest;
In my own darkness visions came, the sacred
Images of the household gods I had carried
With me from Troy, out of the burning city.
I saw them plain, in the flood of light, where the moon
Streamed through the dormers. And they eased me, saying:
‘Apollo would tell you this, if you went over
The sea again to Delos; from him we come
To you, with willing spirit. We came with you
From the burnt city, we have followed still
The swollen sea in the ships; in time to come
We shall raise your sons to heaven, and dominion
Shall crown their city. Prepare to build them walls,
Great homes for greatness; do not flee the labor,
The long, long toil of flight. Crete, says Apollo,
Is not the place. There is a land in the West,
Called by the Greeks, Hesperia: anciency
And might in arms and wealth enrich its soil.
The Oenotrians lived there once; now, rumor has it,
A younger race has called it Italy
After the name of a leader, Italus.
Dardanus came from there, our ancestor,
As Iasius was. There is our dwelling-place.
Be happy, then, waken, and tell Anchises
Our certain message: seek the land in the West.
Crete is forbidden country.’

The vision shook me, and the voice of the gods;
(It was not a dream, exactly; I seemed to know them,
Their features, the veiled hair, the living presence.)
I woke in a sweat, held out my hands to heaven,
And poured the pure libation for the altar,
Then, gladly, to Anchises. He acknowledged
His own mistake, a natural confusion,
Our stock was double, of course; no need of saying
We had more ancestors than one. ‘Cassandra,’
Anchises said, ‘alone, now I remember,
Foretold this fate; it seemed she was always talking
Of a land in the West, and Italian kingdoms, always.
But who would ever have thought that any Trojans
Would reach the shores in the West? Or, for that matter,
Who ever believed Cassandra? Let us yield
To the warning of Apollo, and at his bidding
Seek better fortunes.’ So we obeyed him,
Leaving this place, where a few stayed, and sailing
The hollow keels over the mighty ocean.

We were in deep water, and the land no longer
Was visible, sky and ocean everywhere.
A cloud, black-blue, loomed overhead, with night
And tempest in it, and the water roughened
In shadow; winds piled up the sea, the billows
Rose higher; we were scattered in the surges.
Clouds took away the daylight, and the night
Was dark and wet in the sky, with lightning flashing.
We wandered, off our course, in the dark of ocean,
And our pilot, Palinurus, swore he could not
Tell day from night, nor the way among the waters.
For three lost days, three starless nights, we rode it,
Saw land on the fourth, mountains and smoke arising.
The sails came down, we bent to the oars; the sailors
Made the foam fly, sweeping the dark blue water.
I was saved from the waves; the Strophades received me,
(The word means Turning-point in the Greek language),
Ionian islands where the dire Celaeno
And other Harpies live, since Phineus’ house
Was closed to them, and they feared their former tables.
No fiercer plague of the gods’ anger ever
Rose out of hell, girls with the look of birds,
Their bellies fouled, incontinent, their hands
Like talons, and their faces pale with hunger.
We sailed into the harbor, happy to see
Good herds of cattle grazing over the grass
And goats, unshepherded. We cut them down
And made our prayer and offering to Jove,
Set trestles on the curving shore for feasting.
Down from the mountains with a fearful rush
And a sound of wings like metal came the Harpies,
To seize our banquet, smearing dirtiness
Over it all, with a hideous kind of screaming
And a stinking smell. We found a secret hollow
Enclosed by trees, under a ledge of rock,
Where shade played over; there we moved the tables
And lit the fire again; the noisy Harpies
Came out of somewhere, sky, or rock, and harried
The feast again, the filthy talons grabbing,
The taint all through the air. Take arms, I ordered,
We have to fight them. And my comrades, hiding
Their shields in the grass, lay with their swords beside them,
And when the birds swooped screaming, and Misenus,
Sounded the trumpet-signal, they rose to charge them,
A curious kind of battle, men with sword-blades
Against the winged obscenities of ocean.
Their feathers felt no blow, their backs no wound,
They rose to the sky as rapidly as ever,
Leaving the souvenirs of their foul traces
Over the ruined feast. And one, Celaeno,
Perched on a lofty rock, squawked out a warning:—
‘Is it war you want, for slaughtered goats and bullocks,
Is it war you bring, you sons of liars, driving
The innocent Harpies from their father’s kingdom?
Take notice, then, and let my words forever
Stick in your hearts; what Jove has told Apollo,
Apollo told me, and I, the greatest fury,
Shove down your throats; it is Italy you are after,
And the winds will help you, Italy and her harbors
You will reach, all right; but you will not wall the city
Till, for the wrong you have done us, deadly hunger
Will make you gnaw and crunch your very tables!’
She flew back to the forest. My companions
Were chilled with sudden fear; their spirit wavered,
They call on me, to beg for peace, not now
With arms, but vows and praying, filthy birds
Or ill-foreboding goddesses, no matter.
Anchises prayed with outstretched hands, appeasing
The mighty gods with sacrifice:—‘Be gracious,
Great gods, ward off the threats, spare the devoted!’
He bade us tear the cable from the shore,
Shake loose the sails. And a wind sprang up behind us,
Driving us northward; we passed many islands,
Zacynthus, wooded, Dulichium, and Same,
The cliffs of Neritus, Laertes’ kingdom,
With a curse as we went by for Ithaca,
Land of Ulysses. Soon Leucate’s headland
Came into view, a dreadful place for sailors,
Where Apollo had a shrine. We were very weary
As we drew near the little town; the anchor
Was thrown from the prow, the sterns pulled up on the beaches.

This was unhoped-for land; we offered Jove
Our purifying rites, and had the altars
Burning with sacrifice. We thronged the shore
With games of Ilium. Naked, oiled for wrestling,
The young held bouts, glad that so many islands
Held by the Greeks, were safely passed. A year
Went by, and icy winter roughened the waves
With gales from the north. A shield of hollow bronze,
Borne once by Abas, I fastened to the door-posts,
And set a verse below it: Aeneas won
These arms from the Greek victors. I gave the order
To man the thwarts and leave this harbor; all
Obeyed, swept oars in rivalry. We left
Phaeacia’s airy heights, coasting Epirus,
Drawn to Buthrotum, a Chaonian harbor.