Aeneid

Our voices hailed the great gods of the land

with reverent prayer; then skirted we the shore,

where smooth Helorus floods the fruitful plain.

Under Pachynus' beetling precipice

we kept our course; then Camarina rose

in distant view, firm-seated evermore

by Fate's decree; and that far-spreading vale

of Gela, with the name of power it takes

from its wide river; and, uptowering far,

the ramparts of proud Acragas appeared,

where fiery steeds were bred in days of old.

Borne by the winds, along thy coast I fled,

Selinus, green with palm! and past the shore

of Lilybaeum with its treacherous reef;

till at the last the port of Drepanum

received me to its melancholy strand.

Here, woe is me I outworn by stormful seas,

my sire, sole comfort of my grievous doom,

Anchises ceased to be. O best of sires!

Here didst thou leave me in the weary way;

through all our perils—O the bitter loss! —

borne safely, but in vain. King Helenus,

whose prophet-tongue of dark events foretold,

spoke not this woe; nor did Celeno's curse

of this forebode. Such my last loss and pain;

such, of my weary way, the destined goal.

From thence departing, the divine behest

impelled me to thy shores, O listening queen!

Such was, while all gave ear, the tale sublime

father Aeneas, none but he, set forth

of wanderings and of dark decrees divine:

silent at last, he ceased, and took repose.

Now felt the Queen the sharp, slow-gathering pangs

of love; and out of every pulsing vein

nourished the wound and fed its viewless fire.

Her hero's virtues and his lordly line

keep calling to her soul; his words, his glance,

cling to her heart like lingering, barbed steel,

and rest and peace from her vexed body fly.

A new day's dawn with Phoebus' lamp divine

lit up all lands, and from the vaulted heaven

Aurora had dispelled the dark and dew;

when thus unto the ever-answering heart

of her dear sister spoke the stricken Queen:

“Anna, my sister, what disturbing dreams

perplex me and alarm? What guest is this

new-welcomed to our house? How proud his mien!

What dauntless courage and exploits of war!

Sooth, I receive it for no idle tale

that of the gods he sprang. 'T is cowardice

betrays the base-born soul. Ah me! How fate

has smitten him with storms! What dire extremes

of war and horror in his tale he told!

O, were it not immutably resolved

in my fixed heart, that to no shape of man

I would be wed again (since my first love

left me by death abandoned and betrayed);

loathed I not so the marriage torch and train,

I could—who knows?—to this one weakness yield.

Anna, I hide it not! But since the doom

of my ill-starred Sichaeus, when our shrines

were by a brother's murder dabbled o'er,

this man alone has moved me; he alone

has shaken my weak will. I seem to feel

the motions of love's lost, familiar fire.

But may the earth gape open where I tread,

and may almighty Jove with thunder-scourge

hurl me to Erebus' abysmal shade,

to pallid ghosts and midnight fathomless,

before, O Chastity! I shall offend

thy holy power, or cast thy bonds away!

He who first mingled his dear life with mine

took with him all my heart. 'T is his alone —

o, let it rest beside him in the grave!”

She spoke: the bursting tears her breast o'erflowed.

“O dearer to thy sister than her life,”

Anna replied, “wouldst thou in sorrow's weed

waste thy long youth alone, nor ever know

sweet babes at thine own breast, nor gifts of love?

Will dust and ashes, or a buried ghost

reck what we do? 'T is true thy grieving heart

was cold to earlier wooers, Libya's now,

and long ago in Tyre. Iarbas knew

thy scorn, and many a prince and captain bred

in Afric's land of glory. Why resist

a love that makes thee glad? Hast thou no care

what alien lands are these where thou dost reign?

Here are Gaetulia's cities and her tribes

unconquered ever; on thy borders rove

Numidia's uncurbed cavalry; here too

lies Syrtis' cruel shore, and regions wide

of thirsty desert, menaced everywhere

by the wild hordes of Barca. Shall I tell

of Tyre's hostilities, the threats and rage

of our own brother? Friendly gods, I bow,

wafted the Teucrian ships, with Juno's aid,

to these our shores. O sister, what a throne,

and what imperial city shall be thine,

if thus espoused! With Trojan arms allied

how far may not our Punic fame extend