Virgil - The Aeneid of Virgil

'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo hath to tell thee when thou dost reach Ortygia, he utters here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete. There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia. Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields."

'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber; but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay pure offering on the hearth. The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia, often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy? Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better way he counsels." So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.

'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves. Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky, nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills and sending up wreaths of smoke. The sails drop; we swing back to the oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep through the green water. The shores of the Strophades first receive me thus won from the waves, Strophades the Greek name they bear, islands lying in the great Ionian sea, which boding Celaeno and the other Harpies inhabit since Phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters; winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . .

'When borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the grass. We attack them with the sword, and call the gods and Jove himself to share our spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us, swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch, spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland, we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips. Then I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race. Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and hide their shields out of sight. So when they swooped clamorously down along the winding shore, Misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. But they take no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the spoil they had half consumed. Celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents:

'"War is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, O children of Laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless Harpies from their ancestral kingdom? Take then to heart and fix fast these words of mine; which the Lord omnipotent foretold to Phoebus, Phoebus Apollo to me, I eldest born of the Furies reveal to you. Italy is your goal; wooing the winds you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours unhindered. Yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your tables with gnawing teeth."

'She spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of the wood. But my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods, avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the righteous!" Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. Now wooded Zacynthos appears amid the waves, and Dulichium and Same and Neritos' sheer rocks. We fly past the cliffs of Ithaca, Laërtes' realm, and curse the land, fostress of cruel Ulysses. Soon too Mount Leucata's cloudy peaks are sighted, and Apollo dreaded of sailors. Hither we steer wearily, and stand in to the little town. The anchor is cast from the prow; the sterns are grounded on the beach.

'So at last having attained to land beyond our hopes, we purify ourselves in Jove's worship, and kindle altars of offering, and make the Actian shore gay with the games of Ilium. My comrades strip, and, slippery with oil, exercise their ancestral contests; glad to have got past so many Argive towns, and held on their flight through the encircling foe. Meanwhile the sun rounds the great circle of the year, and icy winter ruffles the waters with Northern gales. I fix against the doorway a hollow shield of brass, that tall Abas had borne, and mark the story with a verse: These arms Aeneas from the conquering Greeks. Then I bid leave the harbour and sit down at the thwarts; emulously my comrades strike the water, and sweep through the seas. Soon we see the cloud-capped Phaeacian towers sink away, skirt the shores of Epirus, and enter the Chaonian haven and approach high Buthrotum town.