The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (36 page)

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Authors: Various

Book III
Translated by William Morris
 
Now after it had pleased the Gods on high to overthrow
The Asian weal and sackless folk of Priam, and alow
Proud Ilium lay, and Neptune’s Troy was smoldering on the ground,
For diverse outlands of the earth and waste lands are we bound,
Driven by omens of the Gods. Our fleet we built beneath
Antandros, and the broken steeps of Phrygian Ida’s heath,
Unwitting whither Fate may drive, or where the Gods shall stay.
And there we draw together men.
Now scarce upon the way
Was summer when my father bade spread sails to Fate at last.
Weeping I leave my father-land, and out of haven passed
Away from fields where Troy-town was, an outcast o‘er the deep,
With folk and son and Household Gods and Greater Gods to keep.
 
Far off a peopled land of Mars lies midst its mighty plain,
Tilled of the Thracians; there whilom did fierce Lycur gus reign.
‘Twas ancient guesting-place of Troy: our Gods went hand in hand
While bloomed our weal: there are we borne, and on the hollow strand
I set my first-born city down, ‘neath evil fates begun,
And call the folk Æneadæ from name myself had won.
 
Unto Dione’s daughter there, my mother, and the rest,
I sacrificed upon a day to gain beginning blest,
And to the King of Heavenly folk was slaying on the shore
A glorious bull: at hand by chance a mound at topmost bore
A cornel-bush and myrtle stiff with shafts close set around:
Thereto I wend and strive to pluck a green shoot from the ground,
That I with leafy boughs thereof may clothe the altars well;
When lo, a portent terrible and marvellous to tell!
For the first stem that from the soil uprooted I tear out
Oozes black drops of very blood, that all the earth about
Is stained with gore: but as for me, with sudden horror chill
My limbs fall quaking, and my blood with freezing fear stands still.
Yet I go on and strive from earth a new tough shoot to win,
That I may search out suddenly what causes lurk within;
And once again from out the bark blood followeth as before.
 
 
I turn the matter in my mind: the Field-Nymphs I adore,
And him, Gradivus, father dread, who rules the Thracian plain,
And pray them turn the thing to good and make its threatenings vain.
But when upon a third of them once more I set my hand,
And striving hard thrust both my knees upon the opposing sand—
—Shall I speak now or hold my peace?—a piteous groan is heard
From out the mound, and to mine ears is borne a dreadful word:
“Why manglest thou a wretched man? 0 spare me in my tomb!
Spare to beguilt thy righteous hand, Æneas! Troy’s own womb
Bore me, thy kinsman; from this stem floweth no alien gore:
Woe’s mel flee forth the cruel land, flee forth the greedy shore;
For I am Polydore: pierced through, by harvest of the spear
O‘ergrown, that such a crop of shafts above my head doth bear.“
 
 
I stood amazed: the wildering fear the heart in me down-weighed.
My hair rose up, my frozen breath within my jaws was stayed.
Unhappy Priam privily had sent this Polydore,
For fostering to the Thracian king with plenteous golden store.
In those first days when he began to doubt the Dardan might,
Having the leaguered walls of Troy for ever in his sight.
This king, as failed the weal of Troy and fortune fell away,
Turned him about to conquering arms and Agamemnon’s day.
He brake all right, slew Polydore, and all the gold he got
Perforce: 0 thou gold-hunger cursed, and whither driv‘st thou not
The hearts of men?
But when at length the fear from me did fall,
Unto the chosen of the folk, my father first of all,
I show those portents of the Gods and ask them of their will,
All deem it good that we depart that wicked land of ill,
And leave that blighted guesting-place and give our ships the breeze.
Therefore to Polydore we do the funeral services,
The earth is heaped up high in mound; the Death-Gods’ altars stand
Woeful with bough of cypress black and coal-blue holy band;
The wives of Ilium range about with due dishevelled hair;
Cups of the warm and foaming milk unto the dead we bear,
And bowls of holy blood we bring, and lay the soul in grave,
And cry a great farewell to him, the last that he shall have.
But now, when we may trust the sea and winds the ocean keep
Unangered, and the South bids on light whispering to the deep,
Our fellows crowd the sea-beach o‘er and run the ships adown,
And from the haven are we borne, and fadeth field and town.
Amid the sea a land there lies, sweet over every thing,
Loved of the Nereids’ mother, loved by that Ægean king
Great Neptune: this, a-wandering once all coasts and shores around,
The Bow-Lord good to Gyaros and high Myconos bound,
And bade it fixed to cherish folk nor fear the wind again:
There come we; and that gentlest isle receives us weary men;
In haven safe we land, and thence Apollo’s town adore;
King Anius, who, a king of men, Apollo’s priesthood bore,
His temples with the fillets done and crowned with holy bays,
Meets us, and straight Anchises knows, his friend of early days.
So therewith hand to hand we join and houseward get us gone.
 
There the God’s fane I pray unto, the place of ancient stone:
“Thymbræan, give us house and home, walls to the weary give,
In folk and city to endure: let Pergamos twice live,
In Troy twice built, left of the Greeks, left of Achilles’ wrath!
Ah, whom to follow? where to go? wherein our home set forth?
O Father, give us augury and sink into our heart!“
 
Scarce had I said the word, when lo, all doors with sudden start
Fell trembling, and the bay of God, and all the mountain side,
Was stirred, and in the opened shrine the holy tripod cried:
There as a voice fell on our ears we bowed ourselves to earth:
“0 hardy folk of Dardanus, the land that gave you birth
From root and stem of fathers old, its very bosom kind,
Shall take you back: go fare ye forth, your ancient mother find:
There shall Æneas’ house be lords o‘er every earth and sea,
The children of his children’s sons, and those that thence shall be.“
 
 
So Phoebus spake, and mighty joy arose with tumult mixed,
As all fell wondering where might be that seat of city fixed,
Where Phoebus called us wondering folk, bidding us turn again.
Thereat my father, musing o‘er the tales of ancient men,
Saith: “Hearken, lords, and this your hope a little learn of me!
There is an isle of mightiest Jove called Crete amid the sea;
An hundred cities great it hath, that most abundant place;
And there the hill of Ida is, and cradle of our race.
Thence Teucer our first father came, if right the tale they tell,
When borne to those Rhœtean shores he chose a place to dwell
A very king: no Ilium was, no Pergamos rose high;
He and his folk abode as then in dales that lowly lie:
Thence came Earth-mother Cybele and Corybantian brass,
And Ida’s thicket; thence the hush all hallowed came to pass,
And thence the lions yoked and tame, the Lady’s chariot drag.
On then! and led by God’s command for nothing let us lag!
Please we the winds, and let our course for Gnosian land be laid;
Nor long the way shall be for us: with Jupiter to aid,
The third-born sun shall stay our ships upon the Cretan shore.“
 
So saying, all the offerings due he to the altar bore,
A bull to Neptune, and a bull to thee, Apollo bright,
A black ewe to the Storm of sea, to Zephyr kind a white.
Fame went that Duke Idomeneus, thrust from his fathers’ land,
Had gone his ways, and desert now was all the Cretan strand,
That left all void of foes to us those habitations lie.
Ortygia’s haven then we leave, and o‘er the sea we fly
By Naxos of the Bacchus ridge, Donusa’s green-hued steep,
And Olearon, and Paros white, and scattered o‘er the deep
All Cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk;
And diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke;
Each eggs his fellow: On for Crete, and sires of time agone!
And rising up upon our wake a fair wind followed on.
And so at last we glide along the old Curetes’ strand,
And straightway eager do I take the city wall in hand,
And call it Pergamea, and urge my folk that name who love,
For love of hearth and home to raise a burg their walls above.
 
 
And now the more part of the ships are hauled up high and dry,
To wedding and to work afield the folk fall presently,
And I give laws and portion steads; when suddenly there fell
From poisoned heaven a wasting plague, a wretched thing to tell,
On limbs of men, on trees and fields; and deadly was the year,
And men must leave dear life and die, or weary sick must bear
Their bodies on: then Sirius fell to burn the acres dry;
The grass was parched, the harvest sick all victual did deny.
Then bids my father back once more o‘er the twice-measured main,
To Phoebus and Ortygia’s strand, some grace of prayer to gain:
What end to our outworn estate he giveth? whence will he
That we should seek us aid of toil; where turn to o‘er the sea?
 
 
Night falleth, and all lives of earth doth sleep on bosom bear,
When lo, the holy images, the Phrygian House-Gods there,
E‘en them I bore away from Troy and heart of burning town,
Were present to the eyes of me in slumber laid adown,
Clear shining in the plenteous light that over all was shed
By the great moon anigh her full through windows fashioned.
Then thus they fall to speech with me, end of my care to make:
 
 
“The thing that in Ortygia erst the seer Apollo spake
Here telleth he, and to thy doors come we of his good will:
Thee and thine arms from Troy aflame fast have we followed still.
We ‘neath thy care and in thy keel have climbed the swelling sea,
And we shall bear unto the stars thy sons that are to be,
And give thy city majesty: make ready mighty wall
For mighty men, nor toil of way leave thou, though long it fall.
Shift hence abode; the Delian-born Apollo ne‘er made sweet
These shores for thee, nor bade thee set thy city down in Crete:
There is a place, the Westland called of Greeks in days that are,
An ancient land, a fruitful soil, a mighty land of war;
Œnotrian folk tilled the land, whose sons, as rumours run,
Now call it nought but Italy, from him who led them on.
This is our very due abode: thence Dardanus outbroke,
Iasius our father thence, beginner of our folk.
Come rise, and glad these tidings tell unto thy father old,
No doubtful tale: now Corythus, Ausonian field and fold
Let him go seek, for Jupiter banneth Dictæan mead.“
All mazed was I with sight and voice of Gods; because indeed
This was not sleep, but face to face, as one a real thing sees.
I seemed to see their coifèd hair and very visages,
And over all my body too cold sweat of trembling flowed.
I tore my body from the bed, and, crying out aloud,
I stretched my upturned hands to heaven and unstained gifts I spilled
Upon the hearth, and joyfully that worship I fulfilled.
Anchises next I do to wit and all the thing unlock;
And he, he saw the twi-branched stem, twin fathers of our stock,
And how by fault of yesterday through steads of old he strayed.
 

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