“And now on rowing-bench they sit,
Bend to the oar their arms close knit,
And straining watch the sign to start,
While generous trembling fills each heart,
And thirst for victory.
Then, at the trumpet’s piercing sound,
All from their stations onward bound:
Upsoars to heaven the oarsmen’s shout,
The upturned billows froth and spout.
. . . . . . . . . .
With plaudits loud and clamorous zeal
Echoes the woodland round;
The pent shores roll the thunder-peal,
The stricken hills resound.”
[Our modern oarsmen would certainly be wiser in this, that they would reserve their own breath (of which they would find considerable need towards the end of the race), and leave the whole of the shouting to be done by enthusiastic spectators.]
“First Gyas issues from the rout,
And holds the foremost place:
Cloanthus next; his oarsmen row
More featly, but his bark is slow,
And checks him in the race.
Behind at equal distance strain
Centaur and Shark the lead to gain;
And now the Shark darts forth, and now
The Centaur has advanced her bow;
And now the twain move side by side,
Their long keels trailing through the tide.”
So goes the race, until the galleys near the rock which they have to round. Gyas sees that his steersman, from over caution, is giving it too wide a berth, and that there is danger of the Scylla, more venturous, cutting in between. He shouts an order to keep closer in; but the old seaman is somewhat obstinate, and it is very soon too late. Cloanthus has seen his advantage, shot round the rock at very close quarters, and now leaves Gyas in the Chimæra behind. Burning with fury, Gyas turns on his steersman, and pitches him into the sea. Happily he can swim, and the rock is close at hand; he climbs upon it, and sits there dripping, to the considerable amusement of the spectators, who, like all lookers-on, seem unmercifully alive to the ludicrous element in any disaster.
Deprived of her helmsman, the huge Chimæra loses her course for a moment, and the two galleys in the rear are quick to take advantage of it. The Shark and Centaur are now rounding the rock almost side by side. But Sergestus, in his eagerness not to lose an inch of advantage, emulates the manœuvre of the Scylla too closely, and takes the Centaur too near. Her broadside of oars touch some of the jutting crags, the oars are broken, and the boat’s head takes the rock, and hangs there hard and fast. All efforts of the crew to get her off are unavailing. Mnestheus makes the dangerous turn safely on the outside of his rival, and his men, encouraged by success, redouble their efforts. The Chimæra has no good steersman to replace old Menœtes, who is still drying himself on the rock, and she is easily passed on the return course homewards. The struggle becomes now one of intense interest between Mnestheus and Cloanthus, who is still leading in the Scylla.
“The cheers redouble from the shore;
Heaven echoes with the wild uproar;
Those blush to lose a conquering game,
And fain would peril life for fame;
These bring success their zeal to fan—
They can, because they think they can.”
The Shark has a stern chase, but the Scylla rows heavily, as we have been told, though she has the best crew, and the distance lessens at every stroke. Had the course been longer, the Shark would have made at least a dead heat of it. But as it is, amidst a storm of shouts, the Scylla wins. The turning-point of victory is one which does not approve itself to modern readers. The sea-deities interfere. Standing high upon his quarter-deck, Cloanthus lifts his prayer to the powers of ocean, not to permit his prize to be snatched from him at the last. He vows an offering of a milk-white bull and libations of red wine if they will help him at his need.
“He said; there heard him ’neath the sea
The Nereid train and Panope;
And with his hand divinely strong,
Portunus[28] pushed the bark along.”
Possibly, after all, the poet only means us to understand that this was Mnestheus’s explanation of his defeat—that the luck was against him.[29]
Cloanthus is crowned with bays as the victor of the day, and receives as his prize an embroidered robe of rare device—one of those miracles of divers colours of needlework in which the classical age seems to have as far excelled us as the mediæval ladies certainly did. Each crew receives three oxen and a supply of wine, while a talent of silver is divided amongst the men of the victorious Scylla. Mnestheus, as second in the race, wins a shirt of mail whose scales are of gold, which two of his attendants bear off with difficulty. The third of the captains has a pair of brazen caldrons and chased silver bowls. But while the awards are being distributed, the crippled Centaur has got off the rock, and is brought into harbour; and a Cretan slave-woman, with her twin children, is allotted, by the liberality of Æneas, as a consolation to her captain.