Nor shudder at the doom of dread
That tells of eating boards for bread:
Fate in her time shall find a way,
And Phœbus waits on souls that pray.
But, for Italia’s neighbour shore,
On whose near beach our billows roar,
Avoid it: there in every place
Has settled Argos’ hated race.
Here Locrian tribes, from Naryx come,
Have found them an Italian home:
Here o’er Salentum’s conquered plains
Idomeneus the Cretan reigns:
While here Petilia’s tiny tower
Is manned by Philoctetes’ power.
Nay, when upon Italian land,
Transported o’er the main, you stand
And pay your offerings on the strand,
Ere yet you light your altars, spread
A purple covering o’er your head,
Lest sudden bursting on your sight
Some hostile presence mar the rite.
Thus worship you, and thus your train,
And sons unborn the rite retain.
But when Sicilia’s shore you near,
And dim Pelorus’ strait grows clear,
Seek the south coast, though long the run
To make its round: the northern shun.
These lands, they say, by rupture strange
(So much can time’s dark process change)
Were cleft in sunder long agone,
When erst the twain had been but one:
Between them rushed the deep, and rent
The island from the continent,
And now with interfusing tides
’Twixt severed lands and cities glides.
There Scylla guards the right-hand coast:
The left is fell Charybdis’ post;
Thrice from the lowest gulf she draws
The water down her giant jaws,
Thrice sends it foaming back to day,
And deluges the heaven with spray.
But Scylla crouches in the gloom
Deep in a cavern’s monstrous womb;
Thence darts her ravening mouth, and drags
The helpless vessels on the crags.
Above she shows a human face
And breasts resembling maiden grace:
Below, ’tis all a hideous whale,
Wolf’s belly linked to fish’s tail.
Far better past Pachynus’ cape
Your journey’s tedious circuit shape,
Than catch one glimpse of Scylla’s cell
And hear those grisly hellhounds yell.
And now, if Helenus speak sooth,
If Phœbus fill his soul with truth,
One charge, one sovereign charge I press,
And stamp it with reiterate stress
Deep in your memory: first of all
On Juno, mighty Juno, call:
Pay vows to Juno: overbear
Her queenly soul with gift and prayer:
So wafted o’er Trinacria’s main,
Italia you at length shall gain.
There when you land at Cumæ’s town,
Where forests o’er Avernus frown,
Your eyes shall see the frenzied maid
Who spells the future in the shade
Of her deep cavern, and consigns
To scattered leaves her mystic lines.
These, when the words of fate are traced,
She leaves within her cavern placed;
Awhile they rest in order ranged,
The sequence and the place unchanged.
But should the breeze through chance- oped door
Whirl them in air ’twixt roof and floor,
She lets them flutter, nor takes pain
To set them in their rank again:
The pilgrims unresolved return,
And her prophetic threshold spurn.
So do not you: nor count too dear
The hours you lavish on the seer,
But, though your comrades chide your stay
And breezes whisper ‘hence away,’
Approach her humbly, and entreat
Herself the presage to repeat,
And open of her own free choice
The prisoned flow of tongue and voice.
The martial tribes of Italy,
The story of your wars to be,
And how to face, or how to fly
Each cloud that darkens on your sky,
Her lips shall tell, and with success
The remnant of your journey bless.
Thus far may run these words of mine.
Go on, and make our Troy divine.’
So spoke the seer, and as he ends
Rich presents to my vessel sends:
Carved ivory and massy gold
And silver stores he in the hold,
And caldrons of Dodona’s mould,
A hauberk twined of golden chain,
A helm adorned with flowing mane,
Which Pyrrhus wore: nor lacks my sire
Due bounty, matching his desire.
He finds us horses, finds us guides,
And oars and equipage provides.
Meantime Anchises bids to sail,
Nor longer cheat the expectant gale:
And thus Apollo’s seer addressed
In courteous phrase his ancient guest:
‘Great chief, fair Venus’ honoured mate,
Twice saved by heaven from Ilium’s fate,
See there Ausonia’s coast at hand!
Before your fleet it lies.
Approach, but think not there to rest:
No, skirt it, and pursue your quest:
Far distant that Ausonian land
Which Phœbus signifies:
Pass on in peace,’ he cries, ‘pass on,
Blest in the affection of your son!
Why task your patience, or delay
The wind fair blowing from the bay?’
Andromache, as loth to part,
Displays the trophies of her art,
And robes Ascanius in the fold
Of Phrygian mantle, wrought with gold,
Nor stints her hand, but from the store
Brings broidered vestments, more and more:
‘Nay, take these too, and let them prove
A fond memorial of the love
Of Hector’s sometime wife,
Dear child of Troy, in whom alone
Astyanax, my lost, my own,
Survives in second life!
Like yours his hands, like yours his brow,
Like yours his eyes’ bright sheen:
And oh! he might be growing now
In years as fresh and green.’
As thus I speak my last farewell:
‘Live and be blest! ’tis sweet to feel
Fate’s book is closed and under seal.
For us, alas! that volume stern
Has many another page to turn.
Yours is a rest assured: no more
Of ocean wave to task the oar,
No far Ausonia to pursue,
Still flying, flying from the view.
A mimic Xanthus and a Troy
Framed by yourselves your thoughts employ,
Born (grant it, Heaven!) in happier day,
Nor offering Greece so sure a prey.
If Tiber’s bank ’tis mine to see
And build the walls my fates decree,
Then shall these kindred towns and towers,
Epirot yours, Hesperian ours,
Sprung from one
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