Authors: Virgil
They were soon coming near the Sirens’ rocks, once a difficult
coast and white with the bones of drowned men, and at that
moment sounding far with the endless grinding of breaker upon
rock, when Father Aeneas sensed that he was adrift without a
helmsman. In mid-ocean in the dead of night he took control of
the ship himself, and grieving to the heart at the loss of his
870 friend, he cried out: ‘You trusted too much, Palinurus, to a clear
sky and a calm sea, and your body will lie naked on an unknown
shore.’
So spoke Aeneas, weeping, and gave the ships their head and at
long last they glided to land at the Euboean colony of Cumae.
The prows were turned out to sea, the teeth of the anchors held
and they moored with their curved sterns fringing the shore.
Gleaming in the sun, an eager band of warriors rushed out on
to the shore of the land of Hesperia, some searching for the
seeds of flame hidden in the veins of flint, some raiding the dense
woods, the haunts of wild beasts, and pointing the way to rivers
they had found. But the devout Aeneas made for the citadel
10 where Apollo sits throned on high and for the vast cave standing
there apart, the retreat of the awesome Sibyl, into whom Delian
Apollo, the God of Prophecy, breathes mind and spirit as he
reveals to her the future. They were soon coming up into the
grove of Diana Trivia and Apollo’s golden shrine.
They say that when Daedalus was fleeing from the kingdom
of Minos, he dared to trust his life to the sky, floating off on
swiftly driving wings towards the cold stars of the north, the
Greater and Lesser Bears, by a route no man had ever gone
before, until at last he was hovering lightly in the air above the
citadel of Chalcidian Cumae. Here he first returned to earth,
dedicating to Phoebus Apollo the wings that had oared him
20 through the sky, and founding a huge temple. On its doors were
depicted the death of Androgeos, son of Minos, and then the
Athenians, the descendants of Cecrops, ordered to pay a cruel
penalty and yield up each year the living bodies of seven of their
sons. The lots are drawn and there stands the urn. Answering
this on the other door are Cnossus and the land of Crete rising
from the sea. Here can be seen the loving of the savage bull and
Pasiphae laid out to receive it and deceive her husband Minos.
Here too is the hybrid offspring, the Minotaur, half-man and
half-animal, the memorial to a perverted love, and here is its
home, built with such great labour, the inextricable Labyrinth.
But Daedalus takes pity on the great love of the princess Ariadne
30 and unravels the winding paths of his own baffling maze, guiding
the blind steps of Theseus with a thread. You too, Icarus, would
have taken no small place in this great work had the grief of
Daedalus allowed it. Twice your father tried to shape your fall
in gold and twice his hands fell helpless. The Trojans would
have gone on gazing and read the whole story through, but
Achates, who had been sent ahead, now returned bringing with
him Deiphobe, the daughter of Glaucus, priestess of Phoebus
and Trivia, who spoke these words to the king: ‘This is no time
for you to be looking at sights like these. Rather at this moment
you should be sacrificing seven bullocks from a herd the yoke
has never touched and seven yearling sheep as ritual prescribes.’
40 So she addressed Aeneas. Nor were the Trojans slow to obey,
and when the sacrifices were performed she called them into the
lofty temple.
This rocky citadel had been colonized by Chalcidians from
Euboea, and one side of it had been hollowed out to form a
vast cavern into which led a hundred broad shafts, a hundred
mouths, from which streamed as many voices giving the
responses of the Sibyl. They had reached the threshold of the
cavern when the virgin priestess cried: ‘Now is the time to ask
your destinies. It is the god. The god is here.’ At that moment,
as she spoke in front of the doors, her face was transfigured, her
colour changed, her hair fell in disorder about her head and she
stood there with heaving breast and her wild heart bursting in
50 ecstasy. She seemed to grow in stature and speak as no mortal
had ever spoken when the god came to her in his power and
breathed upon her. ‘Why are you hesitating, Trojan Aeneas?’
she cried. ‘Why are you so slow to offer your vows and prayers?
Until you have prayed the great mouths of my house are dumb
and will not open.’ She spoke and said no more. A cold shiver
ran through the very bones of the Trojans and their king poured
out the prayers from the depths of his heart: ‘Phoebus Apollo,
you have always pitied the cruel sufferings of the Trojans. You
guided the hands of Trojan Paris and the arrow he sent into the
body of Achilles. You were my leader as I set out upon all
the oceans that lap the great lands of the earth and reached the
60 far-flung peoples of Massylia and the fields that lie out to sea in
front of the Syrtes. Now at long last we lay hold upon the shores
of Italy that have so often receded before us. I pray that from
this moment the fortunes of Troy may follow us no further. You
too, you gods and goddesses who could not endure Troy and
the great glory of the race of Dardanus, it is now right that you
should have mercy upon the people of Pergamum. And you, O
most holy priestess, you who know in advance what is to be,
grant my prayer, for the kingdom I ask for is no more than what
is owed me by the Fates, and allow the Trojans and their
70 homeless and harried gods to settle in Latium. Then I shall
found a temple of solid marble to Phoebus and Trivia, and holy
days in the name of Phoebus. And for you too there will be a
great shrine in our kingdom. Here I shall establish your oracle
and the riddling prophecies you have given my people and I
shall dedicate chosen priests to your gracious service, only do not
consign your prophecies to leaves to be confused and mocked by
every wind that blows. Sing them in your own voice, I beg of
you.’ He said no more.
But the priestess, not yet submissive, was still in wild frenzy
in her cave. The more she tried to shake her body free of the
80 great god the harder he strained upon her foaming mouth,
taming that wild heart and moulding her by his pressure. And
now the hundred huge doors of her house opened of their own
accord and gave her answer to the winds: ‘At long last you have
done with the perils of the ocean, but worse things remain for
you to bear on land. The sons of Dardanus shall come into their
kingdom in Lavinium (put that fear out of your mind), but it is
a coming they will wish they had never known. I see wars,
deadly wars, I see the Thybris foaming with torrents of blood.
There you will find a Simois and a Xanthus. There, too, will be
a Greek camp. A second Achilles is already born in Latium, and
90 he too is the son of a goddess. Juno too is part of Trojan destiny
and will never be far away when you are a suppliant begging in
dire need among all the peoples and all the cities of Italy. Once
again the cause of all this Trojan suffering will be a foreign
bride, another marriage with a stranger. You must not give way
to these adversities but must face them all the more boldly
wherever your fortune allows it. Your road to safety, strange as
it may seem, will start from a Greek city.’
With these words from her shrine the Sibyl of Cumae sang
her fearful riddling prophecies, her voice booming in the cave
100 as she wrapped the truth in darkness, while Apollo shook the
reins upon her in her frenzy and dug the spurs into her flanks.
The madness passed. The wild words died upon her lips, and
the hero Aeneas began to speak: ‘O virgin priestess, suffering
cannot come to me in any new or unforeseen form. I have
already known it. Deep in my heart I have lived it all before.
One prayer I have. Since they say the gate of the king of the
underworld is here and here too in the darkness is the swamp
which the tide of Acheron floods, I pray to be allowed to go and
look upon the face of my dear father. Show me the way and
110 open the sacred doors for me. On these shoulders I carried him
away through the flames and a hail of weapons and rescued
him from the middle of his enemies. He came on my journey
with me over all the oceans and endured all the threats of sea
and sky, feeble as he was but finding a strength beyond his years.
Besides, it was my father himself who begged and commanded
me to come to you as a suppliant and approach your doors. Pity
the father, O gracious one, and pity the son, I beg of you. All
things are within your power and Hecate had her purpose in
giving you charge of the grove of Avernus. Was not Orpheus
120 allowed to summon the shade of his wife with the sound of the
strings of his Thracian lyre? And since Pollux was allowed to
redeem his brother by sharing his death, does he not often travel
that road and often return? Do I need to speak of Theseus? Or
of great Hercules? I too am descended from highest Jupiter.’
While he was still speaking these words of prayer with his
hand upon the altar, the prophetess began her answer: ‘Trojan,
son of Anchises, sprung from the blood of the gods, it is easy to
go down to the underworld. The door of black Dis stands open
night and day. But to retrace your steps and escape to the upper
air, that is the task, that is the labour. Some few have succeeded,
130 sons of the gods, loved and favoured by Jupiter or raised to the
heavens by the flame of their own virtue. The middle of that
world is filled with woods and the river Cocytus glides round
them, holding them in its dark embrace. But if your desire is so
great, if you have so much longing to sail twice upon the pools
of Styx and twice to see black Tartarus, if it is your pleasure to
indulge this labour of madness, listen to what must first be done.
Hidden in a dark tree, there is a golden bough. Golden are its
leaves and its pliant stem and it is sacred to Proserpina, the Juno
of the underworld. A whole grove conceals it and the shades of
140 a dark, encircling valley close it in. But no man may enter the
hidden places of the earth before plucking the golden foliage
and fruit from this tree. The beautiful Proserpina has ordained
that this is the offering that must be brought to her. When one
golden branch has been torn from that tree, another comes to
take its place and the stem puts forth leaves of the same metal.
So then, lift up your eyes and look for it, and when in due time
you find it, take it in your hand and pluck it. If you are a man
called by the Fates, it will come easily of its own accord. But if
not, no strength will prevail against it and hard steel will not be
150 able to hack it off. Besides, you have a friend lying dead. Of this
you know nothing, but his body is polluting the whole fleet
while you linger here at our door asking for oracles. First you
must carry him to his place of rest and lay him in a tomb. Then
you must bring black cattle to begin the purification. When all
this is done, you will be able to see the groves of Styx and the
kingdom where no living man may set his foot.’ So she spoke
and no other word would cross her lips.
With downcast eyes and sorrowing face Aeneas walked from
the cave, revolving in his mind the fulfilment of these dark
prophecies. With him stride for stride went the faithful Achates,
160 and his heart was no less heavy. Long did they talk and many
different thoughts they shared. Who was this dead comrade of
whom the priestess spoke? Whose body was this that had to be
buried? And when they came to the shore, there above the tide
line they found the body of Misenus, who had died a death he
had not deserved. Misenus, son of Aeolus, who had no equal at
summoning the troops with his trumpet and kindling the God
of War with his music, had been the comrade of great Hector,
and by Hector’s side had borne the brunt of battle, excelling not
only with the trumpet but also with the spear. But after Achilles
had defeated Hector and taken his life, the brave Misenus had
170 found no less a hero to follow by joining Aeneas of the stock of
Dardanus. Then one day in his folly he happened to be blowing
into a sea shell, sending the sound ringing over the waves, and
challenged the gods to play as well as he. At this his rival Triton,
if the tale is to be believed, had caught him up and drowned him
in the surf among the rocks. So then they raised around his
body a loud noise of lamentation, not least the dutiful Aeneas.
Without delay they hastened, still weeping, to obey the commands
of the Sibyl, gathering trees to build an altar which would
be his tomb and striving to raise it to the skies. Into the ancient
180 forest they went among the deep lairs of wild beasts. Down
came the pines. The ilex rang under the axe. Beams of ash and
oak were split along the grain with wedges, and they rolled great
manna ashes down from the mountains.