BkIII:1-18 Aeneas Sails to Thrace

After it seemed to the gods to overturn the power of Asia and the innocent race of Priam, and to cut down proud Ilium, and all Neptunes Troy smoked at the ground, we are driven by the omens of the gods to search out different exiles and deserted lands, and we built a fleet under Antandros itself and the mountains of Phrygian Ida, doubtful where fate might bear us or where it might give us over to settle, we assembled our men. The first summer had just begun , and father Anchises ordered to set sail with the fates, when crying I abandoned the shore of my homeland and the harbour and fields, where Troy had been; I was borne as an exile on the deep with my allies and son and great household gods. The far off land with vast fields where Mars is worshipped, Thracians plough it, once ruled by bitter Lycurgus, a former friend of Troy and allied Penates, as long as fortune lasted. I was borne to this place, and on the shore in the curving bay, beginning it with unjust fates, I made my first city with the name Aeneadae from my own name. BkIII: 19-68 The Grave of Polydorus

I was sacrificing to my mother, Daughter of Dione, and to the gods with auspices of the work which was begun, and I was offering gleaming bull to the king above of the heaven dwellers on the shore. By chance there was a mound next to us, on the top of which there were shoots of the cornel tree and quivering myrtle with dense branches. Having approached, as I tried to tear up the green foliage from the ground, to cover the altars with leafy branches, I saw a hideous omen miraculous to tell. For where first the tree was pulled from the ground with broken roots, from this drops dripped with dark blood, and they stained the earth with their foulness. Icy dread shook my limbs and my cold blood congealed in terror. Again I proceeded to tear up pliant stem of another, and to test the causes hidden deep within; black blood followed from the bark of the second one. Turning over many things in my heart I began to pray to the nymphs of the field and the father mars, who rules over the Getican fields, to duly look favourably and lighten the omen. But after I approached a third branch with greater effort, and struggled on my knees on the opposing sand am I to speak or should I be silent? a lamentable groan was heard from the depths of the mound, and an echoing voice was brought to my ears: Why do you injure a wretch? Now spare my sepulchre; spare from sinning your virtuous hands. Troy bore me who am no stranger to you, nor does this blood flow from a log. Alas, flee the cruel lands, flee the shore of avarice; for I am Polydorus; here a crop of iron covers me pinned down, and has grown into sharp spears. Then indeed I was stunned, and my mind crushed with doubtful dread, and my hair stood on end and my voice stuck in my throat. Once unlucky Priam secretly had ordered this man Polydorus with a great weight of gold to be nourished by the Thracian king, when already he was despairing in the arms of Troy and he saw the city was surrounded by a blockade.

He, when the power of Troy was broken and fortune fell back, having followed the cause of Agamemnon and his conquering arms, tore apart every divine law; he slaughtered Polydorus and gained possession of the gold by force. What do you not force human hearts, o accursed greed for gold? After terror left my bones, I reported the oracle of the gods to the chosen leaders of the people and my father above all, and asked what they thought. Everyone was of the same opinion, to depart from the wicked land, to abandon the defiled hospitality and to give the south winds to the fleet. Therefore we established the funeral rites for Polydorus, and the earth was piled huge on his tomb; the altars stood with the shades, gloomy with sky-blue ribbons and black cypress, and around the Trojan women loosening their hair as is the custom; we brought in foaming bowls of warm milk and saucers of sacred blood, and we set up a spirit in its tomb, and we cried for the last time with a loud shout BkIII: 69-120 the Trojans Reach Delos

Then, we had faith in the sea and the winds granted calmed seas, and mild whispering south wind called to the deep, my companions led away the ships and filled the shores; we set out from the harbour and the lands and cities recede. Amid the sea there is a sacred land dearest to the mother of the Nereids and to Aegaen Neptune which the devoted bow Bearer bound back as it wandered around the shores and coasts to lofty Myconos and Gyaros, and when it was fixed gave it to be inhabited and to scorn the winds. I sailed to here; this land most gently received us weary in its safe harbour; having gone out we worshiped the city of Apollo. The king Anjus, the same king of men and priest of Phoebus his temples bound with ribbons and sacred laurel, met us; he recognised his friend the old Anchises. We joined our right hands in hospitality, and we came under his palace. I worshiped the temples of the gods built in ancient stone Grant us Apollo, our own special home; grant us to us weary ones a city walls and a race and a city to endure; save the other Pergamum of Troy, left behind by the Greeks and pitiless Achilles. What are we to follow? Or to where do you command us to go? Where do we lay down a seat? Grant us father, an omen, to flow in our hearts. I had scarcely spoken these words; suddenly everything seemed to tremble, the thresholds and the laurel of the god, and the whole mountain seemed to move around, and the cauldrons bellowed with the sanctuaries opening up. We humbly sought the land and a voice was carried to our ears: Hard Trojans, what land first bore you from your ancestors root, the same will joyfully receive you restored to its fertile breast. Seek out your ancient mother; here the house of Aeneas will stand in sovereignty in all the coasts, and the sons of your sons, and they who will be born from them. This spoke Phoebus, and with intermingled confusion great joy rose and everyone asked what this city was, to where Phoebus calls the wanderers and orders to return? Then my father, reflecting on the reminiscences of aged men, said Listen, o princes, and learn your hopes: Crete lies in the middle of the sea, the island of mighty Jove; where Mount Idaeus is and the cradle of our race.

They inhabit a hundred mighty cities, the richest kingdom; from where our greatest ancestor, if I duly recall what was heard, Teucer was carried first to the Rhoetean shores, and he chose a place for a kingdom. Not yet had Ilium and the Trojan Citadels stood; men lived in the lowest valleys. From here there is the mother, inhabitant of Cybele and the bronze cymbals of Corybantes and the Idaean grove, from here there is the faithful silence of her sacred rites, and the yoked lions coming under the chariot of the mistress. Therefore go, and, by what the orders of the gods lead, let us follow; let us the winds and seek the Cretan kingdoms. And they are not distant with a long journey; now may Jupiter be present, a third dawn shall set our fleet on the shores of Crete. So he spoke and, he made worthy sacrifices on the altars, a bull for Neptune, a bull for you, handsome Apollo, a black sheep for the Storm, and a white one to the favourable Zephyrus. BkIII: 121-171 the Plague and a Vision

Rumour spread that the prince Idomeneus had been driven out and withdrew from his ancestral kingdom, and the shores of Crete were deserted and the homes were empty from the enemy, and the temples were standing abandoned. We left the port of Ortygia and flew on the sea, and we traversed the foaming straits abundant in islands, Naxos revelling in the hills and green Donysa, Olearos, and snowy Paros, the Cyclades scattered along the sea. The shouting of the sailors rose with diverse competition; they urged their allies We make for Crete and our ancestors! The wind rising from the stern followed us on our way and at last we flowed to the ancient shores of the Curetes. Therefore eagerly I worked on the walls of the longed for city, I called it Pergamum, and I encouraged a race joyful in its name to love the hearths and to race a tower with a roof. And now the ships were quite beached on the dry shore; the youth worked in their marriages and newly sown fields; I was giving laws and homes; when suddenly there came a plague and a death dealing year, in the ruined pull of the sky, corrupting limbs and laying waste to the trees and crops. They left sweet life, or were dragging around their sick bodies; then Sirius burned on the barren fields; the grass was dry, and the sick crops denied nourishment. My father urged us to go back on the sea and revisit the oracle of Ortygia and Phoebus, to pray for mercy; what end does he bring for our weary circumstances; from where might he command we attempt help for our labours? To where does our journey turn? It was night, and sleep held the animals in the land; the sacred statues of the gods and the Trojan penates which I had taken out with me from Troy and out of the midst of the flames of the city, I saw before my eyes standing as I was lying in sleep, clear in bright light, where the full moon was streaming through the inserted windows. Then they spoke this and removed my worries with these words. Apollo foretells here what would to say to you, when you reach Delos, and lo! He sends us moreover to your thresholds. We, when Troy burned accompanied you and your arms, we traversed over the swollen sea under you in your fleet, we in the same way shall raise those descendants about to

come to the stars, and we shall give power to the city; you make ready a great city for great people, and do not abandon the long labour of flight. Change your cornfields; Delian Apollo did not urge these shores for you, or order you to settle at Crete. There is a lace, the Greeks call it by the name Hesperia, an ancient land, powerful in arms and fertile soil; Oenotrian men tend it; now rumour has it later peoples have called the race Italian from the name of the leader; these are the special homes for you; from here Dardanus was born, and the father Iasius, from whom first our race came. Come now and joyfully bring these not to be doubted words to your long aged father; may he search out Corythus and the Ausonian lands; Jupiter denies the Dictaean fields for you.

BkIII:172-208 The Trojans Leave Crete for Italy

Astounded by such visions and by the voice of the gods this was not a dream, but I seemed to recognise their expressions in person and their veiled hair and their present faces; then icy sweat ran down along my whole body, my body leapt from the bed, and I reached my upturned hands to the sky with a cry, and I made a libation of pure gifts in the hearth. Having joyfully completed the sacrifice I informed Anchises, and laid out the matter from the beginning. He recognised our ambiguous origins and the two ancestors, and that he had been deceived by a strange error of our ancient home. Then he related son, harassed by the fates of Troy, Cassandra alone used to prophesy such a fall to me. Now I recall that she foretold what was owed to our race, and often she called Hesperia and often the Italian kingdoms. But who should believe that the Trojans would come to the shores of Hesperia, or whom then Cassandra the prophetess would move? Let us give way to Phoebus, and let us, forewarned, follow better things. So he spoke and we all rejoicing obeyed. We also forsook this home, and with a few remaining, we spread our sails, and we hurried on the vast sea in our hollow ships. After the boats reached the seep, and no lands appeared any longer, and from all sides there was sky, and there was the sea on all sides, then a dark rain cloud settled above our heads for me, bearing the night and storm and the waves shuddered in the darkness. Immediately the winds rolled on the sea and the great expanse of water rose; scattered, were cast on the vast whirlpool; the clouds rolled in the day and dewy night stole away the sky; fires roared in the broken clouds. We were driven from our course, and we wandered on the blind waves. Palinurus himself said he could not make out the day and night in the cloud, nor could he remember his path amid the waves. For three doubtful days we wandered the ocean in the blind fog, and just as many nights without stars. On the fourth day, finally first land was seen to raise itself, and to reveal mountains in the distance, and to roll out smoke. The sails fell, we pressed on with oars; the sailors with no delay striving churn up the foam and sweep along the dark blue water. BkIII: 209-277 the Harpies

Saved from the waves the shores of the Strophades first receive me, Strophades stand, called by the Greek name, islands in the great Ionian Sea, which dreadful Celaeno and the other harpies inhabit, after the home of Phineus was closed, and they left their former tables in fear. They have the face of maidens, foulest excrement flowing from their stomachs, hooked claws, and faces always pale with hunger. We saw everywhere on the field a happy herd of cows, and flocks of goats with no guard along the grasses. We flood in with swords and we call on the gods and Jove himself in a share of our plunder; then on the curving shore we build seats and we feast on our rich feast. But suddenly, the harpies are here in a horrifying swoop from the mountains, and they shake their wings with great cries, and they loot the feast, and they foul everything with their filthy touch; then there is a dreadful cry among the repulsive odour. Again in a deep inlet beneath overhanging rocks, encircled by trees and quivering shade, we draw up the tables again and we replace the fire on the altars: again from the divided sky and the blind shadows the shrieking band flies around their prey with clawed feet, and they defile the banquet with their mouths. Then I order my comrades to take up arms, and to wage war with the dreadful race. Not differently, and they do as ordered, and they lay down covered swords along the grass and they conceal hidden shields. Therefore, where they gliding down made a sound along the curving shore, Misenus gives a sign from the high watchtower in the empty air. My comrades flow in, and they attempt new battles, to foul the ill-omened birds of the sea with steel: but neither do they receive any violence to their feathers, not wounds on their back, and quickly gliding under the stars in flight they left the half-eaten booty and traces of filth. One sits on the lofty crag, Celaeno, unlucky prophetess, and bursts forth this cry from her breast: Sons of Laomedon, do you bring war against the ready and drive the innocent harpies from their native kingdom, even a war for your slaughter of the cattle and the heifers you butchered? Therefore receive these words of mine and fix them in your hearts, which the all-powerful father announced to Phoebus and Phoebus Apollo announced to me, I the greatest of the furies. You seek Italy in your course, and with the winds summoned you will go to Italy, and it is allowed to enter its harbour. But you will not surround your granted city with a wall before dread hunger and your injury of the slaughter will drive up to consume your gnawed tables with your jaws. But icy blood curdled in my comrades with fear entering in; their courage fell, and no longer felt glad in arms, but in prayers and offerings to beg for peace, whether they were goddesses, or they were dreadful and fatal birds. But father Anchises down from the shore with his palms outstretched addressed the great divinity with his voice and pointed out the worthy honours: Gods, keep away these threats; gods, avert such a disaster, and calmly save us devoted men. Then he ordered us to snatch away the rope on the shore and to loosen the shaken off rigging. South winds stretched the sails, we fled on the foaming waves, by which course the wind and the helmsman called.

And now amid the waves Zacynthos appears, and Dulicium and Same and Neritos harsh with stone. We escaped the crags of Ithaca, the kingdom of Laertes, and we cursed the land nourisher of savage Ulysses. Soon both the cloudy peaks of Mount Leucata appeared and Apollos headland, feared by sailors. To here we wearily sought and entered the small city; an anchor was cast from the prow, and the sterns stood on the shore. BkIII:278-293 The Games at Actium

Therefore at last we gained passion of the unlooked for land and we were purified for Jove and burned altars with prayers, and we celebrated on the shores of Actium with Trojan games. My comrades slippery in with oil work in the gymnasia of their homeland; it is good to have evaded so many Greek cites and to help our escape through the midst of our enemies. Meanwhile, the sun rolls round the great year, and winter rouses the waves with the icy north winds. I set up a shield of hollow bronze, carried by the Great Abas, on the opposite door posts, and I make a sign with this verse: Aeneas dedicates these arms from the conquering Greeks. Then I ordered to leave the harbour and to sit at the cross beams. My allies eagerly strike oars on the sea and sweep the waters. We soon leave behind the windy towers of Phaeacia and we pass on the shore of Epirius and we come into the Chaonian harbour and approach the lofty city of Buthrotum. BkIII:294-355 Andromache in Chaonia

Here an unbelievable rumour of events filled our ears, that Helenus son of Priam ruled in the Greek cities, gaining the wife and the sceptre of Pyrrhus son of Aecaeus, and Andromache had again come away with a husband from her homeland. I was stunned, and my heart burned with miraculous desire, to address the man and find out about such great happenings. I advanced In the port, leaving the fleet and the shore , when by chance Andromache was consecrating to hectors ashes annual feasts and sad gifts in a sacred grove in the city at the water of a false Simois, and she was calling to Hectors shade at the tomb, which, empty on the green turf, a cause for tears, along with two altars she had dedicated. As she caught sight of me coming and she utterly gobsmacked saw all around Trojan weapons, terrified by the great miracle, she stiffened in her gaze, heat left her bones; she slipped, and finally after a long time she only just spoke; Are you bringing your true appearance, a true messenger for me, son of a goddess? Do you live, or if kindly light has departed, where is hector, She spoke and poured out tears and filled the whole place with cries. I replied to her frenzy only a few words, and moved, I spoke, my voice breaking. Indeed I am alive, and I lead a life through everything which is strangest; do not doubt , for you see truly. Alas, what occurrence has received you fallen from such a great husband, or what fortune worthy enough for Hectors Andromache has revisited you? Are you still the wife of Pyrrhus?

She bowed her head and spoke with a lowered voice; O daughter of priam, one lucky beyond others, ordered to die at the enemy tomb under the lofty walls of Troy, who did not bear any lots of fate, nor as a captive touched the bed of a victorious master! When our homeland burned, I was carried along the varied sea, and bore the distain of Achilles spawn and the arrogance of his youth, having given birth in slavery; he then, having pursued Hermione, of Ledas daughter, and Spartan wedding songs, he sent me to be had as a servant to the servant Helenus. But Orestes, inflamed by great love for his stolen bride and driven by the Furies of his crimes captured him unawares and butchered him on the altars of his fatherland. By the death of Neoptolemus, a share of the kingdom was returned and passed to Helenus, who has named the Chaonian fields and all of Chaonia from the Trojan Chaon, and added this citadel of Troy and Pergamum on the summits. But what winds, what fates have given this course to you? Or what god has driven you unknowingly to our shores? What of the boy Ascanius? Does he survive and is he nourished by the breezes, whom now is your Troy ? But is there any care missing of a parent to a child? Did his father Aeneas and uncle Hector rouse him into any ancient courage and manly spirit? Crying, she was pouring out such things and was vainly stirring long lamentations, when Heroic Helenus son of priam brought himself from the city accompanied by many men, and he recognised his own people and joyfully led us to the threshold, and he much he poured forth dearth between every single word. I advanced, and I recognised a little troy and an imitated Pergamum for many people, and a dry river with the name Xanthus, and I embraced the doorposts of the Scaean Gates. And also the Trojans were no less enjoying the friendly city; the king received them in his spacious porticoes; they consecrated cups of wine in the middle of the courtyard, they held their dishes for a feast placed on gold service ware. BkIII:356-462 The Prophecy of Helenus And now one day and another day went on, and the sails called to the breeze and the canvas was inflated by the swollen south wind. I approached the prophet with these words and I asked such things: Troy born, mediator of the gods, who understands the will of Phoebus, the tripods, the laurel of Claros, the language of birds and the omens of their striving feathered wings, tell me for a favourable oracle told me my whole course and all the gods have urged me to seek Italy in their will and to attempt furthest lands; only the harpy Celaeno foretold a strange portent, evil to say, and announces sad angers and ill-omened hunger what dangers do I above all avoid? Or following what can I overcome such great dangers? Here Helenus, first according to custom having sacrificed bullocks, entreated the gods peace, and loosened the sacred ribbons of his sacred head, and he himself led me by the hand to your threshold, Phoebus, anxious by so much power, and then the priest prophesied from his divine mouth these things:

Son of a goddess for faith in the well omened gods above has shown you to go along the sea; thus the king of the gods has cast the fates, and he rolls the changes; this order is turned I shall set forth a few things to you from many with these words, so that you may move around more safely on a friendly sea and you can settle in the Ausonian harbour; for the fates deny Helenus to know the rest and Saturnian Juno forbids him to speak. First of all a long impassable path separates you far off by long lands from Italy, which you unknowingly reckon is nearby and whose neighbouring port you prepare to enter. And before you can build your city in a safe land, you must flex an oar in the Trinacrian waters, and must traverse the water of the Ausonian sea in your ships, and the infernal lake and the island of Aeaean Circe: I will give signs to you, you keep them stored up in your mind: when you are disturbed, at the water of a secluded river a huge sow, found under oak trees on the shore will lie having given birth to a litter of thirty piglets, White, lying on the ground, white young around her teats, this will be the place of your city, this true rest from your labours. And do not you fear the future gnawing of your tables: the fates will find a way, and Apollo summoned will be present. However, flee these lands and this shore of the coast of Italy, which is lapped closest to the surge of our sea; every city is inhabited by hostile Greeks. Here both Narycian Locri have placed a city, and Lyctian Idomeneus has blocked the Sallentian fields with a military band; here there is that little Petelia, of the Meliboean leader Philoctetes relying on its wall. Furthermore, when the fleet sent across the sea is settled, and you already will loose prayers at altars placed on the shore, veil your hair, covered in your purple robe, so that among the sacred fires in honour of the gods, no hostile appearance will occur and disturb the omens. Let your comrades keep the custom of your sacred rites, keep them yourself; let your descendants remain chaste in their religious duty. But when the wind carries you having departed to the shores of Sicily, and the confines of narrow Pelorus grow thin, the land on the left and the sea on the left in a long circuit are sought; flee the shore and waters on the right. They say that these places once were torn apart, battered by force and by vast destruction only the great age of eternity is strong enough to change it- when each of the two was one land continuously; the sea came into the middle by force and it cut off the side of Hesperia from Sicily with water, and flowed between the fields and the divided cities on the shore in its narrow surge. On the right Scylla blocks the side, on the left implacable Charybdis, and three times it sucks down vast waves with a deep whirlpool of its abyss into the downward gulf , and again it raises them alternately under the breezes and strikes the stars with the water. But in the blind shadows a cave surrounds Scylla, stretching forth with its mouth and dragging ships on the rocks. First she has the face of a person and with beautiful maiden breasts down to her groin, but following with the immense body of a sea monster, joining the tail of the dolphin with the belly of a wolf. It is better to go round the point of Trinacrian Pachynus, lingering, and to circle a long course, than to have seen Scylla once hideous in her vast cave and the rocks echoing with dark dogs. Moreover, if there is any wisdom in Helenus, if there is any faith in the prophet, if Apollo fills his soul with the truth, I shall foretell this one thing to you, son of a goddess, one thing which is for everything, and repeating it again and again I shall warn you: respect first the divinity of mighty Juno

with prayer; gladly recite vows to Juno, overcome the powerful mistress with humble gifts; thus at last leave Trinacria to arrive at Italy lands as a victor. To here when you have come down and approached the city of Cumae, and the divine lakes and the Avernus whispering with groves, you will see the raving prophetess, who under the deepest crag recites the fates, and consigns notes and names on leaves . Whatever verses the virgin writes on the leaves, she arranges in their number, and leaves them secluded in the cave. These stay unmoving in that place, nor do they pass from their line; but the same, when a light breeze drives them with a turned hinge and the door disturbs the delicate leaves, never then does she take care to take them as they flutter about in the stone cave, nor does she set them back in position, or join the verses; they are gone unanswered, and they hate the home of the Sibyl. Although your friends complain and the course calls your sails to the deep by force and you can fill the canvas with favourable wind, here for you there will be no cost in the delay of any worth, but go to the prophetess and ask in your prayers that she recite the oracles themselves, and willingly loose her voice in her mouth. She will reveal for you the people of Italy, those wars about to come, and in what way you might endure or flee each labour, and she respected will give a favourable course for you. These are the things of which you are allowed to be warned by my voice. Go now, and take mighty Troy to heaven with you deeds. BkIII:463-505 The Departure from Chaonia

Accordingly he ordered gifts heavy with gold and carved ivory to be carried to the ships, and packed huge silver in the keels, and Dodonan cauldrons, breastplate with hooks triple weaved with gold, and the cone of a fine helmet, and a plume of long hair, the weapons of Neoptolemus; and there were his own gifts to my father. He added horses, he added guides, he filled up our rowing crew, and also kitted out my comrades with weapons. Meanwhile, Anchises was ordering to fit the fleet with sails, lest any delay might happen in the rushing wind. The interpreter of Phoebus addressed him with much respect: Anchises, worthy of proud marriage with Venus, care of the gods, twice snatched from the destruction of Troy, look on your land Ansonia; take it by sails. And yet it is necessary to glide past it on the sea; that part of Ausonia is far off which Apollo has spread out. Farewell, he said no one happy in piety of a son. Why moreover do I continue and delay by speaking the rising south winds? And no less did Andromache gloomy at the final departure bring robes embroidered with weft of gold, and a Phrygian cloak for Ascanius (nor did she withdraw her respect), she burdened hum with textile gifts and spoke such things as follows: Receive these, which may be mementoes of my hands for you, and may bear witness to the long love of Andromache, the wife of hector. Take the last gift of your people, o the sole likeness of my Astyanx left to me; so did he used to bear his eyes, so his hand, so his mouth; and now he would be coming to maturity with you equal in age. I departing spoke these words with tears welling;

Live happily, to whom fortunes are already accomplished; we are called from one destiny to another. Rest is obtained for you; no water of the sea must be ploughed, nor must you search always for the fields of Ausonia receding back. I wish that you see the likeness of the Xanthus and Troy, which your hands have made, with better auspices, and which might be met less by the Greeks. If ever I enter the Tiber and the neighbouring fields of the Tiber, I shall see the city granted to my race, and one day we shall make the kindred cities and neighbouring peoples one Troy, in Epirus, Hesperia, for which the same originator is Dardanus and the same history, may this care remain in our descendants.

BkIII:506-547 In Sight of Italy

We were carried on the sea next to neighbouring Ceraunia from where the journey to Italy and the course on the waves was shortest. The son vanished meanwhile and the dark mountains were shadowed; we stretch out, having shared oars by lot, in the lap of the longed for land at the water. And everywhere we attend to our bodies on the dry shore; sleep overwhelms our weary limbs. Not yet was night coming under the middle of its orbit driven by the hours Palinurus rose, not sluggishly, from his covering, and he tested all the winds, and he took the breeze with his ears; he noted all the stars gliding in the silent sky, and he observed Arcturus, rainy Hyadas and the twin Triones, and Orion armed with gold. After he saw that all was in accordance with a calm sky, he gave a bright sign from the ships; we moved camp and attempted a way and spread the wings of the sails. And now dawn was reddening with the stars put to flight, when far off we saw dark hills and low lying Italy. Italy Achates first exclaimed, Italy, my comrades hailed with joyful shouting. Then father Anchises took up a great bowl with a garland, and he filled it with wine, and called the gods, standing on the high stern: Gods of the sea and of the lands and powerful of the storms, bring us and easy path with the wind and breathe on us favourably. The longed for breezes grew and the port lay open, now nearer, and a temple appeared in the citadel of Minerva. My allies gathered the sails and turned the prows to the shores. The port curved by the eastern wave in an arc, the projecting rocks seethed with salty spray; it itself is hidden; towering crags send down their arms on the twin walls, and the temple lies back from the shore. I saw here, the first omen, four horses on grass, grazing on the field far and wide, with snow white splendour. Mad father Anchises said, o host land, you bring war, the horses are armed for war, these arms the threaten war. But yet one day the same quadrupeds might be used to coming under with the chariot, and with a yoke bearing the reins in harmony; there is also hope of peace. Then we prayed to the holy power of arms clashing Pallas, who first received our exulting, and we veiled our

heads with Phrygian robes before the altars, and in the orders of Helenus, by rite we gave out the ordered sacrifices to Argive Juno. BkIII:548-587 The Approach to Sicily

Without delay immediately with the prayers completed in order, we turned ends of the covered sailyards, and we leave the homes of the Greeks and the mistrusted fields. From there Tarentums bay of Hercules is seen (if the rumour is true); opposite, the Lacinian goddess raises herself , and the Caulon citadels and shipwreck causing Scylaceum. Then far off the Trinacrian Etna was seen from the wave, and we heard a huge roar of the sea and the struck rocks far away, and broken cries at the shore, the shallows leap about, and the sand mixes with the tide. And Father Anchises said doubtless, this is Charybdis; Helenus foretold these crags, these horrible rocks. Take us, o comrades, and equally rise up against it with oars! And no less did they do as ordered, and first Palinurus turned his groaning prow to the waves on the left. The entire cohort made for port side with oars and the wind. We were raised to the sky by curving whirlpools, and again we come down with to the depth of hades with a withdrawing wave. Three times the crags give shouting among the hollow ricks, and three times we see the burst spray and the dewy stars. Meanwhile the wind with the sun abandoned weary men, and unknowing of the way we glided to the shores of the Cyclops. There is a harbour unmoved by the approach of the winds and huge itself; but Etna thunders next to it with horrific destruction; and sometimes it bursts forth a black cloud to heaven, smoking with a pitch-black hurricane and glowing ash, and it raises globs of fire and licks at the stars; occasionally vomiting it heaves up the crags and the torn off innards of the mountain, and with a roar it gathers up liquefied stone under the breezes, and it boils over from its lowest depth. There is a rumour that the body of Enceladus half burned by lightening was buried here in a mass, and placed above him mighty Etna, to breathe out flames with its rent furnaces; whenever he changes his weary flank, that the whole of Sicily trembles with the rumbling, and the sky is covered with smoke. Protected by a wood, we bore through for that night the immense monstrosity, and we did not see the cause of the sound. For there were neither the fire of the stars nor the bright pole in the starry sky, but clouds in the dark sky and stormy night held the moon in the rainstorm. . BkIII:588-654 Achaemenides

And now the following day rose with the first light of dawn, and Aurora moved away the moist shade from the poles; when suddenly from the woods the strange form of an unknown man utterly exhausted in its thinness, and pitiable in his dress came forward, and as a suppliant stretched his hands to the shore. We looked back; the dreadful filth and the uncut beard, the clothing fastened with thorns, but otherwise a Greek, and once sent in arms of his homeland to Troy. And he when he saw Dardanian dress and Trojan weapons far off, terrified by the sight hesitated a little, and checked his step; soon doubtfully he brought himself to the shore with weeping and prayers: through the stars as my witness, and the gods, and this life-giving light of heaven, bear me,

O Trojans; carry me away to lands whatever they are, this will be enough. I know that I am one from the fleet of the Greeks, and I acknowledge that I attacked the Trojan households in war; for this, if the injustice of our crime is so great, toss me in the waves, and drown me in the vast sea. If I die, it will be a joy to have died at the hands of men. He had spoken and embracing the knees and clung on to the knees, rolling about. We urged him to tell us who he was, from what race he was born; then to show what fortune tormented him. Father Anchises himself gave his right hand to the young man, not delaying much, and he strengthened his spirit with ready security. He, at last with his fear laid aside, spoke these words: I am from the homeland Ithaca, a companion of unlucky Ulysses, with the name Achaemenides, and with the father Adamastus being a poor man would that fortune had remained so I set off to Troy. Here, as they anxiously left the cruel thresholds, my comrades, unremembering, deserted me in the vast cave of the Cyclops. A huge home with gore and bloody feasts, inside shadow; he himself is enormous and strikes the high stars gods, keep away such a scourge from the lands neither easy to see nor kind to anyone. He feeds on entrails of wretched men and black blood. I myself saw him take two bodies from our number in his great, and lying back in the middle of the cave, dash them on the rock, and the cruel threshold streamed with fore; I saw him gnaw their limbs dripping with black clots, and their warm joints twitching under his teeth. Indeed, this was not unpunished, nor did Ulysses endure such things or did the Ithacan forget himself in such a great crisis. For as soon as he was filled with his feasting and buried in wine he placed down his curving neck, and lay massive along the cave, vomiting gore and flesh scraps mixed in with bloody wine through his sleep, we prayed to the great divine power, and our duties were allotted, together around on all sides we were spread out, and we bore through his eye with a sharp state massive, which alone under the grim brow was lying hidden, like an argive shield or the torch of Phoebus, and at last joyfully we avenged the shades of our allies. But flee, o wretched ones, flee and tear your rope from the shore. For of such a kind and of such size as Polyphemus who shuts in his hollow cave woolly sheep and milks their udders, a hundred other abominable Cyclopes live at these curving shores and they wander the high mountains. Three times already the horns of the moon have filled themselves with light, and I am dragging with my life in the woods, among the deserted dens of beasts, and I observed the huge Cyclopes from the cliff, and I quaked at the sound of their feet and their voice. The branches give an unhappy sustenance, berries and stony cherries, and the grass feeds me with torn up roots. Reviewing everything, I first caught sight of this fleet coming to the shore. I have resigned myself to this, whatever may have happened; it is enough to have escaped the evil race. Rather you take this life in any death whatsoever.

BkIII:655-691 Polyphemus

He had scarcely spoken, when we saw on the mountain summit the very shepherd Polyphemus, moving himself among his sheep in a vast mass and seeking the shore he knew, a horrendous sight,

hideous, huge, whose eye was taken. A chopped off pine in his hand kept him straight and made his steps steady; woolly sheep accompanied him this his only pleasure and the comfort of evil. After he touched the depths of the waves and turned to the sea, he washed the flowing blood from his gouged eye, gnashing his teeth with a groan, and walked now through the middle of the sea, the waves did not yet wet his tall thigh. We anxiously hastened our flight from there, thus having received the deserved suppliant, and silently we cut the rope; we turned, stooping with striving oars on the sea. He felt it, and he turned his step to the sound of voices; indeed, where no power was given to lay hold of us with his hand nor to equal the Ionian waves in force by following, he raised a massive cry, by which the harbour and all the waves shook, and far within the land of Italy was terrified, and Etna bellowed in its curving caverns. But the race of the Cyclopes roused rushed from the woods and the high mountains to the harbour and filled the shores. We them the Etnan brothers vainly standing with a fierce eye, and bearing their heads high in the sky, a horrible meeting; just as when airy oak trees on a lofty peak, or cone bearing cypresses stand, in the high wood of Jupiter, or the grove of Diana. Sharp fear drove us to send out rigging headlong by any means, and to stretch out the sails with the favourable winds. The orders of Helenus warned us against going between Scylla and Charybdis, either path with a small distinction of death, unless the course held; it was decided to give the sails back. Yet look, the north wind sent from the narrow seat of Pelorus is here. I sail by the mouths of Pantagia with natural stone, and the Megarian bays and low lying Thapsus. Such were the things Achaemenides showed, traversing the wrong shores back again, the companion of unlucky Ulysses.

BkIII:692-718 The Death of Anchises

An island lies stretched out in the Sicilian bay opposite billowy Plemyrium ; earlier men named it Ortygia. There is a rumour that Alpheus, river of Elis, drove secret paths to here under the sea; he now merges with the Sicilian waves at your mouth, Arethusa. We venerated the great divinity at the ordered place; and then I passed the very fertile soil of marshy Helorus. Next we went along the lofty cliffs and the jutting rocks of Pachynus, and Camerina appeared far off granted never to be moved by the fates, and the Geloan fields, and Gela named from its massive river. Then the height of Acragas shows its most massive walls distant, once the breeder of great-hearted horses; and I left you, palmy Selinus, with the granted winds, and I passed the difficult shallows of Lilybaeum with hidden rocks. From here the port of Drepanum received me and the joyless shore. Here, after being driven by so many storms on the sea, alas I lost my father Anchises, the solace of all of my cares and woes; here you left me weary, most excellent father, alas, saved in vain from so many dangers. Even the prophet Helenus, when he warned us of many horrors, had not predicted these griefs to me, nor dread Celaeno. This was the last toil, this the end of my long journeys. Thus father Aeneas

with everyone attentive to him alone retold the fates of the gods, and he described his journey . At last he fell silent and having made an end here he rested.