The gathering waters climb the pole:
We scatter, tossing o’er the deep:
The thunder-clouds involve the day;
Dark night has snatched the heaven away:
Through rents of sky the lightnings leap:
Thus erring from our track designed,
We grope among the waters blind.
E’en Palinurus cannot trace
The boundary- line of day and night,
Or recollect his course aright
Amid the undistinguished space.
Three starless nights, three sunless days
We welter in the blinding haze.
The fourth at last the prospect clears,
And smoke from distant hills appears.
Drop sails, ply oars! the labouring crew
Toss wide the foam, and brush the blue.
We land upon the Strophades
(Such name in Greece they bear),
Isles in the vast Ionian main
Where fell Celæno and her train
Of Harpies hold their lair,
Since, driven from Phineus’ door, they fled
The tables where of old they fed.
So foul a plague for human crime
Ne’er issued from the Stygian slime.
A maid above, a bird below:
Noisome and foul the belly’s flow:
The hands are taloned: Famine bleak
Sits ever ghastly on the cheek.
Soon as we gain the port, we see
Sleek herds of oxen pasturing free,
And goats, without a swain to guard,
Dispersed along the grassy sward.
We seize our weapons, lay them dead,
And call on Jove the spoil to share;
Then on the winding beach we spread
Our couches, and enjoy the fare;
When sudden from the mountains swoop,
Fierce charging down, the Harpy troop,
Devour, contaminate, befoul,
With sickening stench and hideous howl.
A second time we take our seat,
Deep in a hollowed rock’s retreat,
Protected by a leafy screen
Of forestry and quivering green,
There spread the tables, skin the flesh,
And light our altar-fires afresh.
A second time the assailants fly
From other regions of the sky,
With crooked claws the banquet waste,
And poison whatsoe’er they taste.
I charge my crews to draw the sword
And battle with the fiendish horde.
They act as bidden, and conceal
Along the grass the glittering steel.
So when the rush of wings once more
Is heard along the bending shore,
Misenus sounds his loud alarms
From the hill’s top, and calls to arms:
And on we rush in novel war,
These foul sea-birds to maim and mar.
In vain: no weapon’s stroke may cleave
The texture of their feathery mail:
They soar into the air, and leave
On food half-gnawn their loathsome trail:
All but Celæno: she, curst seer,
Speaks from a rock these words of fear:
“What! would ye fight, false perjured race?
Fight for the beeves your greed has slain,
And unoffending Harpies chase
From their hereditary reign?
Now listen, and attentive lay
Deep in your hearts the things I say.
The fate by Jove to Phœbus shown,
By Phœbus’ self to me made known—
Ay, tremble, for in me ye view
The Furies’ queen—I tell to you.
To Italy in haste ye drive,
With winds at your command:
Go then, in Italy arrive,
And draw your ships to land:
But ere your town with walls ye fence,
Fierce famine, retribution dread
For this your murderous violence,
Shall make you eat your boards for bread.
She spoke, and vanished ’mid the wood:
Chill horror froze my comrades’ blood:
No more of arms: the prayer, the vow
They fain would make their weapons now,
Whate’er the monsters, powers divine,
Or birds ill-omened and malign.
With outstretched hands my father prays
The God above, and offerings pays:
‘Heaven, bar these threatenings: Heaven, avert
Such horror, and protect desert!’
Then bids the crews their ships unbind
And stretch the mainsheet to the wind.
We hurry o’er the tide,
Where’er the helmsman and the gale
Conspire our course to guide:
Now rises o’er the foamy flood
Zacynthos with its crown of wood,
Dulichium, Same, Neritos,
Whose rocky sides the waves emboss:
The crags of Ithaca we flee,
Laertes’ rugged sovereignty,
Nor in our flight forget to curse
The land that was Ulysses’ nurse.
Soon Leucas rears its cloud-capped head,
And Phœbus, whom the seamen dread.
Hither we turn our barks at last,
And near his city land;
The anchors from the prows are cast,
The keels are on the strand.
Our lustral rites to Jove we pay,
And light the votive flames,
And make the shores of Actium gay
With Ilium’s festal games.
With pride my merry comrades strip
And oil them for the wrestler’s grip,
True to the wont of Troy:
So many Argive towns o’erpast,
And flight ’mid circling foes held fast,
O, but the thought was joy!
Meantime the sun rolls round the year,
And winter makes the waters drear.
The brazen circle of a shield
Which mighty Abas wont to wield
I fasten to the temple-gate,
And thus my deed commemorate,
‘Æneas fixes on these doors
Arms won from Danaan conquerors:
Then give my crews the word to quit
The port, and on their benches sit.
With emulous zeal they smite the deep,
And o’er
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