Aeneid

where from this sea of ours the tide sweeps in,

escape and flee, for all its cities hold

pernicious Greeks, thy foes: the Locri there

have builded walls; the wide Sallentine fields

are filled with soldiers of Idomeneus;

there Meliboean Philoctetes' town,

petilia, towers above its little wall.

Yea, even when thy fleet has crossed the main,

and from new altars built along the shore

thy vows to Heaven are paid, throw o'er thy head

a purple mantle, veiling well thy brows,

lest, while the sacrificial fire ascends

in offering to the gods, thine eye behold

some face of foe, and every omen fail.

Let all thy people keep this custom due,

and thou thyself be faithful; let thy seed

forever thus th' immaculate rite maintain.

After departing hence, thou shalt be blown

toward Sicily, and strait Pelorus' bounds

will open wide. Then take the leftward way:

those leftward waters in long circuit sweep,

far from that billowy coast, the opposing side.

These regions, so they tell, in ages gone

by huge and violent convulsion riven

(Such mutability is wrought by time),

sprang wide asunder; where the doubled strand

sole and continuous lay, the sea's vast power

burst in between, and bade its waves divide

Hesperia's bosom from fair Sicily,

while with a straitened firth it interflowed

their fields and cities sundered shore from shore.

The right side Scylla keeps; the left is given

to pitiless Charybdis, who draws down

to the wild whirling of her steep abyss

the monster waves, and ever and anon

flings them at heaven, to lash the tranquil stars.

But Scylla, prisoned in her eyeless cave,

thrusts forth her face, and pulls upon the rocks

ship after ship; the parts that first be seen

are human; a fair-breasted virgin she,

down to the womb; but all that lurks below

is a huge-membered fish, where strangely join

the flukes of dolphins and the paunch of wolves.

Better by far to round the distant goal

of the Trinacrian headlands, veering wide

from thy true course, than ever thou shouldst see

that shapeless Scylla in her vaulted cave,

where grim rocks echo her dark sea-dogs' roar.

Yea, more, if aught of prescience be bestowed

on Helenus, if trusted prophet he,

and Phoebus to his heart true voice have given,

o goddess-born, one counsel chief of all

I tell thee oft, and urge it o'er and o'er.

To Juno's godhead lift thy Ioudest prayer;

to Juno chant a fervent votive song,

and with obedient offering persuade

that potent Queen. So shalt thou, triumphing,

to Italy be sped, and leave behind

Trinacria.When wafted to that shore,

repair to Cumae's hill, and to the Lake

Avernus with its whispering grove divine.

There shalt thou see a frenzied prophetess,

who from beneath the hollow scarped crag

sings oracles, or characters on leaves

mysterious names. Whate'er the virgin writes,

on leaves inscribing the portentous song,

she sets in order, and conceals them well

in her deep cave, where they abide unchanged

in due array. Yet not a care has she,

if with some swinging hinge a breeze sweeps in,

to catch them as they whirl: if open door

disperse them flutterlig through the hollow rock,

she will not link their shifted sense anew,

nor re-invent her fragmentary song.

Oft her unanswered votaries depart,

scorning the Sibyl's shrine. But deem not thou

thy tarrying too Iong, whate'er thy stay.

Though thy companions chide, though winds of power

invite thy ship to sea, and well would speed

the swelling sail, yet to that Sibyl go.

Pray that her own lips may sing forth for thee

the oracles, uplifting her dread voice

in willing prophecy. Her rede shall tell

of Italy, its wars and tribes to be,

and of what way each burden and each woe

may be escaped, or borne. Her favoring aid

will grant swift, happy voyages to thy prayer.

Such counsels Heaven to my lips allows.

arise, begone! and by thy glorious deeds

set Troy among the stars! “

So spake the prophet with benignant voice.

Then gifts he bade be brought of heavy gold

and graven ivory, which to our ships

he bade us bear; each bark was Ioaded full

with messy silver and Dodona's pride

of brazen cauldrons; a cuirass he gave

of linked gold enwrought and triple chain;

a noble helmet, too, with flaming crest

and lofty cone, th' accoutrement erewhile

of Neoptolemus. My father too