Authors: Virgil
When he had spoken he clasped our knees, he grovelled on
his knees, and would not rise. We urged him to explain who he
610 was, what family he came from and what misfortune was driving
him to this. Father Anchises himself was not slow to offer his
right hand and that assurance gave him courage. He laid aside
his fear and told his story: ‘My native land is Ithaca. I am a
comrade of the unfortunate Ulixes. My name is Achaemenides.
My father Adamastus being poor, I went to Troy – cursed be
the day! My comrades, distraught with fear, forgot me and left
me here in the vast cave of the Cyclops when they crossed that
cruel threshold to safety. This huge cavern is his home, deep
620 and dark and filthy with the gore of his feasts. He himself is so
tall that his head knocks against the stars – O you gods, relieve
the earth of all such monsters. No one dares to look at him or
speak to him. He feeds on the flesh of his victims and drinks the
black blood. I have seen him with my own eyes lolling in the
middle of his cave with two of our men in one huge hand,
bashing their bodies on the rock till the threshold was swimming
with blood. I have seen him chewing arms and legs with black
gore oozing from them and the warm limbs twitching between
his teeth. But he met his punishment. The man from Ithaca
630 did not submit to this. Whatever happened Ulixes was always
Ulixes. As soon as the Cyclops had his fill and was sunk in a
drunken stupor, lying there with his head back and his neck
exposed, sprawling all over the cave and belching blood and
wine and pieces of flesh as he slept, we prayed to the great gods
and after casting lots spread ourselves out all round him. Then,
taking a sharp weapon, we drilled the one huge eye that lay, like
an Argive shield or the lamp of Apollo’s sun, deep set in that
dreadful forehead. That was how in the end we took sweet
revenge for the death of our comrades. But you are in danger.
640 You must escape and escape now. Cut your moorings and put
to sea. You know what Polyphemus is and how huge he is,
keeping his woolly sheep penned there in his hollow cave and
squeezing the milk from their udders, but there are a hundred
other horrible Cyclopes living together near this shore and
roving the high mountains. This is now the third time I have
seen the horns of the moon filling with light as I have dragged
out my existence in the woods alone among the dens and lairs
of wild beasts, climbing rocks to keep watch on the giant
650 Cyclopes and trembling at the sound of their voices and the
tread of their feet. My food is miserable. The trees yield me
some berries and the fruit of the cornel, hard as stone, and I tear
up herbs by the root and eat them. I have kept constant watch
but this is the first time I have seen ships coming near this shore.
I have put myself in your hands, and would have done so
whoever you had been. It is enough for me to escape from this
unspeakable people. You can take this life of mine by whatever
means you please.’
Scarcely had he finished speaking when we saw the shepherd
Polyphemus himself high up on the mountain among his sheep,
heaving his vast bulk down towards the shore he knew so well.
He was a terrifying sight, huge, hideous, blinded in his one eye
and using the trunk of a pine tree to guide his hand and give
660 him a firm footing. His woolly sheep were coming with him.
They were the only pleasure he had left, his sole consolation in
distress. As soon as he felt the waves deepening and reached the
level ocean, he washed away with sea water the blood that was
still trickling from his gouged-out eye, grinding his teeth and
moaning, and as he strode now in mid-ocean, the waves still did
not wet his towering flanks.
We were terrified and lost no time in taking the fugitive
aboard – he had suffered enough – and making our escape.
Keeping silence as we cut the cables we churned the surface of
the sea, leaning forward and straining at the oars. He heard us,
670 and whirled round in the direction of our voices, but he had no
chance of laying a hand on us or keeping up with the current of
the Ionian sea, so he raised a great clamour which set the ocean
and all its waves shivering. The whole land of Italy trembled
with fear and the bellowing boomed in the hollow caverns of
Mount Etna. The tribe of Cyclopes was roused and came rushing
down from their woods and high mountains to the harbour and
filled the shore. We saw the brotherhood of Etna standing there
680 helpless, each with his one eye glaring and head held high in the
sky, a fearsome gathering, standing like high-topped mountain
oaks or cone-bearing cypresses in Jupiter’s soaring forest or the
grove of Diana. With terror driving us along we let the sheets
full out and filled our sails with whatever wind was blowing.
This is what Helenus had told us not to do. He had advised us
that it was a narrow passage between Scylla and Charybdis with
death on either side if I did not hold a steady course. I resolved
to turn about, and sure enough the north wind came to our
rescue and blew down the narrow strait from Cape Pelorus. I
sailed south past the mouth of the river Pantagias with its
harbour of natural rock, past the bay of Megara and low-lying
690 Thapsus. Achaemenides pointed out such places to us as we took
him back along the shores he had once sailed in his wanderings as
a comrade of the unfortunate Ulixes.
At the entrance to the bay of Syracuse, opposite the wave-beaten
headland of Plemyrium, there stands an island which
men of old called Ortygia. The story goes that the river-god
Alpheus of Elis forced his way here by hidden passages under
the sea and now mingles with Sicilian waters at the mouth of
Arethusa’s fountain. Obeying the instructions we had received,
we worshipped the great gods of the place and I then sailed on
leaving behind the rich lands around the marshy river Helorus.
700 From here we rounded Cape Pachynus, Keeping close in to its
jutting cliffs of rock, and Camerina came in to view in the
distance, the place the Fates forbade to move, and then the
Geloan plains and Gela itself, called after its turbulent river.
Then in the far distance appeared the great walls of Acragas on
its crag, once famous for the breeding of high-mettled horses.
Next the winds carried me past Selinus, named after the parsley
it gave to crown the victors in Greek games, and I steered past
the dangerous shoals and hidden rocks of Lilybaeum.
I then put into port at Drepanum, but had little joy of that
710 shore. This was the place where weary as I was with all these
batterings of sea and storm, to my great grief I lost my father
Anchises who had been my support in every difficulty and
disaster. This is where you left me, O best of fathers, whom I
rescued from so many dangers and all to no purpose. Neither
Helenus for all his fearsome predictions nor the Harpy Celaeno
gave me any warning of this sorrow. This was the last of my
labours. With this my long course was run. From here I sailed,
and God drove me upon your shores.’
In these words did Father Aeneas recount his wanderings and
the fates the gods had sent him, and they all listened. At last he
was silent. Here he made an end and was at peace.
But the queen had long since been suffering from love’s deadly
wound, feeding it with her blood and being consumed by its
hidden fire. Again and again there rushed into her mind thoughts
of the great valour of the man and the high glories of his line.
His features and the words he had spoken had pierced her heart
and love gave her body no peace or rest. The next day’s dawn
was beginning to traverse the earth with the lamp of Phoebus’
sunlight and had moved the dank shadow of night from the sky
when she spoke these words from the depths of her affliction to
10 her loved and loving sister: ‘O Anna, what fearful dreams I have
as I lie there between sleeping and waking! What a man is this
who has just come as a stranger into our house! What a look on
his face! What courage in his heart! What a warrior! I do believe,
and I am sure it is true, he is descended from the gods. If there
is any baseness in a man, it shows as cowardice. Oh how cruelly
he has been hounded by the Fates! And did you hear him tell
what a bitter cup of war he has had to drain? If my mind had
not been set and immovably fixed against joining any man in
the bonds of marriage ever since death cheated me of my first
love, if I were not so utterly opposed to the marriage torch and
20 bed, this is the one temptation to which I could possibly have
succumbed. I will admit it, Anna, ever since the death of my
poor husband Sychaeus, since my own brother spilt his blood
and polluted the gods of our home, this is the only man who
has stirred my feelings and moved my mind to waver: I sense
the return of the old fires. But I would pray that the earth open
to its depths and swallow me or that the All-powerful Father of
the Gods blast me with his thunderbolt and hurl me down to
the pale shades of Erebus and its bottomless night before I go
against my conscience and rescind its laws. The man who first
joined himself to me has carried away all my love. He shall keep
it for himself, safe in his grave.’
30 The tears came when she had finished speaking, and streamed
down upon her breast. But Anna replied: ‘O sister, dearer to me
than the light of life, are you going to waste away, living alone
and in mourning all the days of your youth, without knowing
the delight of children and the rewards of love? Do you believe
this is what the dead care about when they are buried in the
grave? Since your great sadness you have paid no heed to any
man in Libya, or before that in Tyre. You have rejected Iarbas
and other chiefs bred in Africa, this rich home of triumphant
warriors. Will you now resist even a love your heart accepts?
Have you forgotten what sort of people these are in whose land
40 you have settled? On the one side you are beset by invincible
Gaetulians, by Numidians, a race not partial to the bridle, and
the inhospitable Syrtes; on the other, waterless desert and fierce
raiders from Barca. I do not need to tell you about the war being
raised against you in Tyre and your brother’s threats. I for my
part believe that it is with the blessing of the gods and the favour
of Juno that the Trojan ships have held course here through the
winds. Just think, O my sister, what a city and what a kingdom
you will see rising here if you are married to such a man! To
what a pinnacle of glory will Carthage be raised if Trojans are
50 marching at our side! You need only ask the blessing of the gods
and prevail upon them with sacrifices. Indulge your guest. Stitch
together some reasons to keep him here while stormy seas and
the downpours of Orion are exhausting their fury, while his
ships are in pieces and it is no sky to sail under.’
With these words Anna lit a fire of wild love in her sister’s
breast. Where there had been doubt she gave hope and Dido’s
conscience was overcome. First they approached the shrines and
went round the altars asking the blessing of the gods. They
picked out yearling sheep, as ritual prescribed, and sacrificed
them to Ceres the Lawgiver, to Phoebus Apollo, to Bacchus the
60 Releaser and above all to Juno, the guardian of the marriage
bond. Dido in all her beauty would hold a sacred dish in her
right hand and would pour wine from it between the horns of
a white cow or she would walk in state to richly smoking
altars before the faces of the gods, renewing her offerings all
day long, and when the bellies of the victims were opened she
would stare into their breathing entrails to read the signs. But
priests, as we know, are ignorant. What use are prayers and
shrines to a passionate woman? The flame was eating the soft
marrow of her bones and the wound lived quietly under her
breast. Dido was on fire with love and wandered all over the
70 city in her misery and madness like a wounded doe which a
shepherd hunting in the woods of Crete has caught off guard,
striking her from long range with steel-tipped shaft; the arrow
flies and is left in her body without his knowing it; she runs
away over all the wooded slopes of Mount Dicte, and sticking
in her side is the arrow that will bring her death.