The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (38 page)

Read The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) Online

Authors: Various

BOOK: The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library)
11.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Saturnian Juno’s will it is that more he utter not.
First, from that Italy, which thou unwitting deem‘st anigh,
Thinking to make in little space the haven close hereby,
Long is the wayless way that shears, and long the length of land;
And first in the Trinacrian wave must bend the rower’s wand.
On plain of that Ausonian salt your ships must stray awhile,
And thou must see the nether meres, Ææan Circe’s isle,
Ere thou on earth assured and safe thy city may‘st set down.
I show thee tokens; in thy soul store thou the tokens shown.
When thou with careful heart shalt stray the secret stream anigh,
And ‘neath the holm-oaks of the shore shalt see a great sow lie,
That e‘en now farrowed thirty head of young, long on the ground
She lieth white, with piglings white their mother’s dugs around—
That earth shall be thy city’s place, there rest from toil is stored.
Nor shudder at the coming curse, the gnawing of the board,
The Fates shall find a way thereto; Apollo called shall come.
But flee these lands of Italy, this shore so near our home,
That washing of the strand thereof our very sea-tide seeks;
For in all cities thereabout abide the evil Greeks.
There now have come the Locrian folk Narycian walls to build;
And Lyctian Idomeneus Sallentine meads hath filled
With war-folk; Philoctetes there holdeth Petelia small,
Now by that Melibœan duke fenced round with mighty wall.
Moreover, when your ships have crossed the sea, and there do stay,
And on the altars raised thereto your vows ashore ye pay,
Be veiled of head, and wrap thyself in cloth of purple dye,
Lest ‘twixt you and the holy fires ye light to God on high
Some face of foeman should thrust in the holy signs to spill.
Now let thy folk, yea and thyself, this worship thus fulfil,
And let thy righteous sons of sons such fashion ever mind.
But when, gone forth, to Sicily thou comest on the wind,
And when Pelorus’ narrow sea is widening all away,
Your course for leftward lying land and leftward waters lay,
How long soe‘er ye reach about: flee righthand shore and wave.
In time agone some mighty thing this place to wrack down drave,
So much for changing of the world doth lapse of time avail.
It split atwain, when heretofore the two lands, saith the tale,
Had been but one, the sea rushed in and clave with mighty flood
Hesperia’s side from Italy, and field and city stood
Drawn back on either shore, along a sundering sea-race strait
There Scylla on the right hand lurks, the left insatiate
Charybdis holds, who in her maw all whirling deep adown
Sucketh the great flood tumbling in thrice daily, which out-thrown
Thrice daily doth she spout on high, smiting the stars with brine.
But Scylla doth the hidden hole of mirky cave confine;
With face thrust forth she draweth ships on to that stony bed;
Manlike above, with maiden breast and lovely fashionèd
Down to the midst, she hath below huge body of a whale,
And unto maw of wolfish heads is knit a dolphin’s tail.
‘Tis better far to win about Pachynus, outer ness
Of Sicily, and reach long round, despite the weariness,
Than have that ugly sight of her within her awful den,
And hear her coal-blue baying dogs and rocks that ring again.
 
“Now furthermore if Helenus in any thing have skill,
Or aught of trust, or if his soul with sooth Apollo fill,
Of one thing, Goddess-born, will I forewarn thee over all,
And spoken o‘er and o’er again my word on thee shall fall:
The mighty Juno’s godhead first let many a prayer seek home;
To Juno sing your vows in joy, with suppliant gifts o‘ercome
That Lady of all Might; and so, Trinacria overpast,
Shalt thou be sped to Italy victorious at the last.
When there thou com‘st and Cumæ’s town amidst thy way hast found,
The Holy Meres, Avernus’ woods fruitful of many a sound,
There the wild seer-maid shalt thou see, who in a rock-hewn cave
Singeth of fate, and letteth leaves her names and tokens have:
But whatso song upon those leaves the maiden seer hath writ
She ordereth duly, and in den of live stone leaveth it:
There lie the written leaves unmoved, nor shift their ordered rows.
But when the hinge works round, and thence a light air on them blows,
Then, when the door doth disarray among the frail leaves bear,
To catch them fluttering in the cave she never hath a care,
Nor will she set them back again nor make the song-words meet;
So folk unanswered go their ways and loathe the Sibyl’s seat.
But thou, count not the cost of time that there thou hast to spend;
Although thy fellows blame thee sore, and length of way to wend
Call on thy sails, and thou may‘st fill their folds with happy gale,
Draw nigh the seer, and strive with prayers to have her holy tale;
Beseech her sing, and that her words from willing tongue go free:
So reverenced shall she tell thee tale of folk of Italy
And wars to come; and how to ‘scape, and how to bear each ill,
And with a happy end at last thy wandering shall fulfil.
Now is this all my tongue is moved to tell thee lawfully:
Go, let thy deeds Troy’s mightiness exalt above the sky!“
 
So when the seer from loving mouth such words as this had said,
Then gifts of heavy gold and gifts of carven tooth he bade
Be borne a-shipboard; and our keels he therewithal doth stow
With Dodonæan kettle-ware and silver great enow,
A coat of hooked woven mail and triple golden chain,
A helm with noble towering crest crowned with a flowing mane,
The arms of Pyrrhus: gifts most meet my father hath withal;
And steeds he gives and guides he gives,
Fills up the tale of oars, and arms our fellows to their need.
 
Anchises still was bidding us meanwhile to have a heed
Of setting sail, nor with the wind all fair to make delay;
To whom with words of worship now doth Phœbus’ servant say:
“Anchises, thou whom Venus’ bed hath made so glorious,
Care of the Gods, twice caught away from ruin of Pergamos,
Lo, there the Ausonian land for thee, set sail upon the chase:
Yet needs must thou upon the sea glide by its neighbouring face.
Far off is that Ausonia yet that Phœbus open lays.
Fare forth, made glad with pious son! why tread I longer ways
Of speech, and stay the rising South with words that I would tell?“
 
And therewithal Andromache, sad with the last farewell,
Brings for Ascanius raiment wrought with picturing wool of gold,
And Phrygian coat; nor will she have our honour wax a-cold,
But loads him with the woven gifts, and such word sayeth she:
“Take these, fair boy; keep them to be my hands’ last memory,
The tokens of enduring love thy younger days did win
From Hector’s wife Andromache, the last gifts of thy kin.
O thou, of my Astyanax the only image now!
Such eyes he had, such hands he had, such countenance as thou,
And now with thee were growing up in equal tale of years.“
 
Then I, departing, spake to them amid my rising tears:
“Live happy! Ye with fortune’s game have nothing more to play,
While we from side to side thereof are hurried swift away.
Your rest hath blossomed and brought forth; no sea-field shall ye till,
Seeking the fields of Italy that fade before you still.
Ye see another Xanthus here, ye see another Troy,
Made by your hands for better days, mehopes, and longer joy:
And soothly less it lies across the pathway of the Greek,
If ever I that Tiber flood and Tiber fields I seek
Shall enter, and behold the walls our folk shall win of fate.
Twin cities some day shall we have, and folks confederate,
Epirus and Hesperia; from Dardanus each came,
One fate had each: then shall we make one city and the same,
One Troy in heart: lo, let our sons of sons’ sons see to it!“
Past nigh Ceraunian mountain-sides thence o‘er the sea we flit,
Whence the sea-way to Italy the shortest may be made.
But in the meanwhile sets the sun, the dusk hills lie in shade,
And, choosing oaf-wards, down we lie on bosom of the land
So wished for: by the water-side and on the dry sea-strand
We tend our bodies here and there; sleep floodeth every limb.
But ere the hour-bedriven night in midmost orb did swim,
Nought slothful Palinurus rose, and wisdom strives to win
Of all the winds: with eager ear the breeze he drinketh in;
He noteth how through silent heaven the stars soft gliding fare,
Arcturus, the wet Hyades, and either Northern Bear,
And through and through he searcheth out Orion girt with gold.
So when he sees how every thing a peaceful sky foretold,
He bloweth clear from off the poop, and we our campment shift,
And try the road and spread abroad our sail-wings to the lift.
 
 
And now, the stars all put to flight, Aurora’s blushes grow,
When we behold dim fells afar and long lands lying low
—E‘en Italy. Achates first cries out on Italy;
To Italy our joyous folk glad salutation cry.
Anchises then a mighty bowl crowned with a garland fair,
And filled it with unwatered wine and called the Gods to hear,
High standing on the lofty deck:
“O Gods that rue the earth and sea, and all the tides of storm,
Make our way easy with the wind, breathe on us kindly breath!“
 
 
Then riseth up the long-for breeze, the haven openeth
As nigh we draw, and on the cliff a fane of Pallas shows:
Therewith our fellow-folk furl sail and shoreward turn the prows.
Bow-wise the bight is hollowed out by eastward-setting flood,
But over-foamed by salt-sea spray thrust out its twin horns stood,
While it lay hidden; tower-like rocks let down on either hand
Twin arms of rock-wall, and the fane lies backward from the strand.
 
 
But I beheld upon the grass four horses, snowy white,
Grazing the meadows far and wide, first omen of my sight.
Father Anchises seeth and saith: “New land, and bear‘st thou war?
For war are horses dight; so these war-threatening herd-beasts are.
Yet whiles indeed those four-foot things in car will well refrain,
And tamed beneath the yoke will bear the bit and bridle’s strain,
So there is yet a hope of peace.“
Then on the might we call
Of Pallas of the weapon-din, first welcomer of all,
And veil our brows before the Gods with cloth of Phrygian dye;
And that chief charge of Helenus we do all rightfully,
And Argive Juno worship there in such wise as is willed.
 
We tarry not, but when all vows are duly there fulfilled,
Unto the wind our sail-yard horns we fall to turn about,
And leave the houses of the Greeks, and nursing fields of doubt.
And next is seen Tarentum’s bay, the Herculean place
If fame tell true; Lacinia then, the house of Gods, we face;
And Caulon’s towers, and Scylaceum, of old the ship-man’s bane,
Then see we Ætna rise far off above Trinacria’s main;
Afar the mighty moan of sea, and sea-cliffs beaten sore,
We hearken, and the broken voice that cometh from the shore:
The sea leaps high upon the shoals, the eddy churns the sand.
 
 
Then saith Anchises: “Lo forsooth, Charybdis is at hand,
Those rocks and stones the dread whereof did Helenus foretell.
Save ye, 0 friends! swing out the oars together now and well!“
 
 
Nor worser than his word they do, and first the roaring beaks
Doth Palinurus leftward wrest; then all the sea-host seeks
With sail and oar the waters wild upon the left that lie:
Upheaved upon the tossing whirl we fare unto the sky,
Then down unto the nether Gods we sink upon the wave:
Thrice from the hollow-carven rocks great roar the sea-cliffs gave;
Thrice did we see the spray cast forth and stars with sea-dew done;
But the wind left us weary folk at sinking of the sun,
And on the Cyclops’ strand we glide unwitting of the way.
Locked from the wind the haven is, itself an ample bay;
But hard at hand mid ruin and fear doth Ætna thunder loud;
And while it blasteth forth on air a black and dreadful cloud,
That rolleth on a pitchy wreath, where bright the ashes mix,
And heaveth up great globes of flame and heaven’s high star-world licks,
And other whiles the very cliffs, and riven mountain-maw
It belches forth; the molten stones together will it draw
Aloft with moan, and boileth o‘er from lowest inner vale.

Other books

Unlocking the Sky by Seth Shulman
Insurrection by Robyn Young
After Bathing at Baxters by D. J. Taylor
Confederates by Thomas Keneally
The Underside of Joy by Sere Prince Halverson
in0 by Unknown