The Aeneid Read online

  skimming over the cresting waves on spinning wheels

  to set the seas to rest. Just as, all too often,

  some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising,

  the rabble runs amok, all slaves to passion,

  rocks, firebrands flying. Rage finds them arms

  but then, if they chance to see a man among them,

  one whose devotion and public service lend him weight,

  they stand there, stock-still with their ears alert as

  he rules their furor with his words and calms their passion.

  So the crash of the breakers all fell silent once their Father,

  gazing over his realm under clear skies, flicks his horses,

  giving them free rein, and his eager chariot flies.

  Now bone-weary, Aeneas’ shipmates make a run

  for the nearest landfall, wheeling prows around

  they turn for Libya’s coast. There is a haven shaped

  by an island shielding the mouth of a long deep bay, its flanks

  breaking the force of combers pounding in from the sea

  while drawing them off into calm receding channels.

  Both sides of the harbor, rock cliffs tower, crowned

  by twin crags that menace the sky, overshadowing

  reaches of sheltered water, quiet and secure.

  Over them as a backdrop looms a quivering wood,

  above them rears a grove, bristling dark with shade,

  and fronting the cliff, a cave under hanging rocks

  with fresh water inside, seats cut in the native stone,

  the home of nymphs. Never a need of cables here to moor

  a weathered ship, no anchor with biting flukes to bind her fast.

  Aeneas puts in here with a bare seven warships

  saved from his whole fleet. How keen their longing

  for dry land underfoot as the Trojans disembark,

  taking hold of the earth, their last best hope,

  and fling their brine-wracked bodies on the sand.

  Achates is first to strike a spark from flint,

  then works to keep it alive in dry leaves,

  cups it around with kindling, feeds it chips

  and briskly fans the tinder into flame.

  Then, spent as they were from all their toil,

  they set out food, the bounty of Ceres, drenched

  in sea-salt, Ceres’ utensils too, her mills and troughs,

  and bend to parch with fire the grain they had salvaged,

  grind it fine on stones.

  While they see to their meal

  Aeneas scales a crag, straining to scan the sea-reach

  far and wide . . . is there any trace of Antheus now,

  tossed by the gales, or his warships banked with oars?

  Or Capys perhaps, or Caicus’ stern adorned with shields?

  Not a ship in sight. But he does spot three stags

  roaming the shore, an entire herd behind them

  grazing down the glens in a long ranked line.

  He halts, grasps his bow and his flying arrows,

  the weapons his trusty aide Achates keeps at hand.

  First the leaders, antlers branching over their high heads,

  he brings them down, then turns on the herd, his shafts

  stampeding the rest like rabble into the leafy groves.

  Shaft on shaft, no stopping him till he stretches

  seven hefty carcasses on the ground—a triumph,

  one for each of his ships—and makes for the cove,

  divides the kill with his whole crew and then shares out

  the wine that good Acestes, princely man, had brimmed

  in their casks the day they left Sicilian shores.

  The commander’s words relieve their stricken hearts:

  “My comrades, hardly strangers to pain before now,

  we all have weathered worse. Some god will grant us

  an end to this as well. You’ve threaded the rocks

  resounding with Scylla’s howling rabid dogs,

  and taken the brunt of the Cyclops’ boulders, too.

  Call up your courage again. Dismiss your grief and fear.

  A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.

  Through so many hard straits, so many twists and turns

  our course holds firm for Latium. There Fate holds out

  a homeland, calm, at peace. There the gods decree

  the kingdom of Troy will rise again. Bear up.

  Save your strength for better times to come.”

  Brave words.

  Sick with mounting cares he assumes a look of hope

  and keeps his anguish buried in his heart.

  The men gird up for the game, the coming feast,

  they skin the hide from the ribs, lay bare the meat.

  Some cut it into quivering strips, impale it on skewers,

  some set cauldrons along the beach and fire them to the boil.

  Then they renew their strength with food, stretched out

  on the beachgrass, fill themselves with seasoned wine

  and venison rich and crisp. Their hunger sated,

  the tables cleared away, they talk on for hours,

  asking after their missing shipmates—wavering now

  between hope and fear: what to believe about the rest?

  Were the men still alive or just in the last throes,

  forever lost to their comrades’ far-flung calls?

  Aeneas most of all, devoted to his shipmates,

  deep within himself he moans for the losses . . .

  now for Orontes, hardy soldier, now for Amycus,

  now for the brutal fate that Lycus may have met,

  then Gyas and brave Cloanthus, hearts of oak.

  Their mourning was over now as Jove from high heaven,

  gazing down on the sea, the whitecaps winged with sails,

  the lands outspread, the coasts, the nations of the earth,

  paused at the zenith of the sky and set his sights

  on Libya, that proud kingdom. All at once,

  as he took to heart the struggles he beheld,

  Venus approached in rare sorrow, tears abrim

  in her sparkling eyes, and begged: “Oh you who rule

  the lives of men and gods with your everlasting laws

  and your lightning bolt of terror, what crime could my Aeneas

  commit against you, what dire harm could the Trojans do

  that after bearing so many losses, this wide world

  is shut to them now? And all because of Italy.

  Surely from them the Romans would arise one day

  as the years roll on, and leaders would as well,

  descended from Teucer’s blood brought back to life,

  to rule all lands and seas with boundless power—

  you promised! Father, what motive changed your mind?

  With that, at least, I consoled myself for Troy’s demise,

  that heartrending ruin—weighing fate against fate.

  But now after all my Trojans suffered, still

  the same disastrous fortune drives them on and on.

  What end, great king, do you set to their ordeals?

  “Antenor could slip out from under the Greek siege,

  then make his passage through the Illyrian gulfs and,

  safe through the inlands where the Liburnians rule,

  he struggled past the Timavus River’s source.

  There, through its nine mouths as the mountain caves

  roar back, the river bursts out into full flood,

  a thundering surf that overpowers the fields.

  Reaching Italy, he erected a city for his people,

  a Trojan home called Padua—gave them a Trojan name,

  hung up their Trojan arms and there, after long wars,

  he lingers on in serene and settled peace.

  “But we,

  your own children, the ones you swore would hold

/>   the battlements of heaven—now our ships are lost,

  appalling! We are abandoned, thanks to the rage

  of a single foe, cut off from Italy’s shores.

  Is this our reward for reverence,

  this the way you give us back our throne?”

  The Father of Men and Gods, smiling down on her

  with the glance that clears the sky and calms the tempest,

  lightly kissing his daughter on the lips, replied:

  “Relieve yourself of fear, my lady of Cythera,

  the fate of your children stands unchanged, I swear.

  You will see your promised city, see Lavinium’s walls

  and bear your great-hearted Aeneas up to the stars on high.

  Nothing has changed my mind. No, your son, believe me—

  since anguish is gnawing at you, I will tell you more,

  unrolling the scroll of Fate

  to reveal its darkest secrets. Aeneas will wage

  a long, costly war in Italy, crush defiant tribes

  and build high city walls for his people there

  and found the rule of law. Only three summers

  will see him govern Latium, three winters pass

  in barracks after the Latins have been broken.

  But his son Ascanius, now that he gains the name

  of Iulus—Ilus he was, while Ilium ruled on high—

  will fill out with his own reign thirty sovereign years,

  a giant cycle of months revolving round and round,

  transferring his rule from its old Lavinian home

  to raise up Alba Longa’s mighty ramparts.

  There, in turn, for a full three hundred years

  the dynasty of Hector will hold sway till Ilia,

  a royal priestess great with the brood of Mars,

  will bear the god twin sons. Then one, Romulus,

  reveling in the tawny pelt of a wolf that nursed him,

  will inherit the line and build the walls of Mars

  and after his own name, call his people Romans.

  On them I set no limits, space or time:

  I have granted them power, empire without end.

  Even furious Juno, now plaguing the land and sea and sky

  with terror: she will mend her ways and hold dear with me

  these Romans, lords of the earth, the race arrayed in togas.

  This is my pleasure, my decree. Indeed, an age will come,

  as the long years slip by, when Assaracus’ royal house

  will quell Achilles’ homeland, brilliant Mycenae too,

  and enslave their people, rule defeated Argos.

  From that noble blood will arise a Trojan Caesar,

  his empire bound by the Ocean, his glory by the stars:

  Julius, a name passed down from Iulus, his great forebear.

  And you, in years to come, will welcome him to the skies,

  you rest assured—laden with plunder of the East,

  and he with Aeneas will be invoked in prayer.

  Then will the violent centuries, battles set aside,

  grow gentle, kind. Vesta and silver-haired Good Faith

  and Romulus flanked by brother Remus will make the laws.

  The terrible Gates of War with their welded iron bars

  will stand bolted shut, and locked inside, the Frenzy

  of civil strife will crouch down on his savage weapons,

  hands pinioned behind his back with a hundred brazen shackles,

  monstrously roaring out from his bloody jaws.”

  So

  he decrees and speeds the son of Maia down the sky

  to make the lands and the new stronghold, Carthage,

  open in welcome to the Trojans, not let Dido,

  unaware of fate, expel them from her borders.

  Down through the vast clear air flies Mercury,

  rowing his wings like oars and in a moment

  stands on Libya’s shores, obeys commands

  and the will of god is done.

  The Carthaginians calm their fiery temper

  and Queen Dido, above all, takes to heart

  a spirit of peace and warm good will to meet

  the men of Troy.

  But Aeneas, duty-bound,

  his mind restless with worries all that night,

  reached a firm resolve as the fresh day broke.

  Out he goes to explore the strange terrain . . .

  what coast had the stormwinds brought him to?

  Who lives here? All he sees is wild, untilled—

  what men, or what creatures? Then report the news

  to all his comrades. So, concealing his ships

  in the sheltered woody narrows overarched by rocks

  and screened around by trees and trembling shade,

  Aeneas moves out, with only Achates at his side,

  two steel-tipped javelins balanced in his grip.

  Suddenly, in the heart of the woods, his mother

  crossed his path. She looked like a young girl,

  a Spartan girl decked out in dress and gear

  or Thracian Harpalyce tiring out her mares,

  outracing the Hebrus River’s rapid tides.

  Hung from a shoulder, a bow that fit her grip,

  a huntress for all the world, she’d let her curls

  go streaming free in the wind, her knees were bare,

  her flowing skirts hitched up with a tight knot.

  She speaks out first: “You there, young soldiers,

  did you by any chance see one of my sisters?

  Which way did she go? Roaming the woods,

  a quiver slung from her belt,

  wearing a spotted lynx-skin, or in full cry,

  hot on the track of some great frothing boar?”

  So Venus asked and the son of Venus answered:

  “Not one of your sisters have I seen or heard . . .

  but how should I greet a young girl like you?

  Your face, your features—hardly a mortal’s looks

  and the tone of your voice is hardly human either.

  Oh a goddess, without a doubt! What, are you

  Apollo’s sister? Or one of the breed of Nymphs?

  Be kind, whoever you are, relieve our troubled hearts.

  Under what skies and onto what coasts of the world

  have we been driven? Tell us, please. Castaways,

  we know nothing, not the people, not the place—

  lost, hurled here by the gales and heavy seas.

  Many a victim will fall before your altars,

  we’ll slaughter them for you!”

  But Venus replied:

  “Now there’s an honor I really don’t deserve.

  It’s just the style for Tyrian girls to sport

  a quiver and high-laced hunting boots in crimson.

  What you see is a Punic kingdom, people of Tyre

  and Agenor’s town, but the border’s held by Libyans

  hard to break in war. Phoenician Dido is in command,

  she sailed from Tyre, in flight from her own brother.

  Oh it’s a long tale of crime, long, twisting, dark,

  but I’ll try to trace the high points in their order . . .

  “Dido was married to Sychaeus, the richest man in Tyre,

  and she, poor girl, was consumed with love for him.

  Her father gave her away, wed for the first time,

  a virgin still, and these her first solemn rites.

  But her brother held power in Tyre—Pygmalion,

  a monster, the vilest man alive.

  A murderous feud broke out between both men.

  Pygmalion, catching Sychaeus off guard at the altar,

  slaughtered him in blood. That unholy man, so blind

  in his lust for gold he ran him through with a sword,

  then hid the crime for months, deaf to his sister’s love,

  her heartbreak. Still he mocked her with wicked lies,

  with empty hopes.
But she had a dream one night.

  The true ghost of her husband, not yet buried,

  came and lifting his face—ashen, awesome in death—

  showed her the cruel altar, the wounds that pierced his chest

  and exposed the secret horror that lurked within the house.

  He urged her on: ‘Take flight from our homeland, quick!’

  And then he revealed an unknown ancient treasure,

  an untold weight of silver and gold, a comrade

  to speed her on her way.

  “Driven by all this,

  Dido plans her escape, collects her followers

  fired by savage hate of the tyrant or bitter fear.

  They seize some galleys set to sail, load them with gold—

  the wealth Pygmalion craved—and they bear it overseas

  and a woman leads them all. Reaching this haven here,

  where now you will see the steep ramparts rising,

  the new city of Carthage—the Tyrians purchased land as

  large as a bull’s-hide could enclose but cut in strips for size

  and called it Byrsa, the Hide, for the spread they’d bought.

  But you, who are you? What shores do you come from?

  Where are you headed now?”

  He answered her questions,

  drawing a labored sigh from deep within his chest:

  “Goddess, if I’d retrace our story to its start,

  if you had time to hear the saga of our ordeals,

  before I finished the Evening Star would close

  the gates of Olympus, put the day to sleep . . .

  From old Troy we come—Troy it’s called, perhaps

  you’ve heard the name—sailing over the world’s seas

  until, by chance, some whim of the winds, some tempest

  drove us onto Libyan shores. I am Aeneas, duty-bound.

  I carry aboard my ships the gods of house and home

  we seized from enemy hands. My fame goes past the skies.

  I seek my homeland—Italy—born as I am from highest Jove.

  I launched out on the Phrygian sea with twenty ships,

  my goddess mother marking the way, and followed hard

  on the course the Fates had charted. A mere seven,

  battered by wind and wave, survived the worst.

  I myself am a stranger, utterly at a loss,

  trekking over this wild Libyan wasteland,

  forced from Europe, Asia too, an exile—”

  Venus could bear no more of his laments

  and broke in on his tale of endless hardship:

  “Whoever you are, I scarcely think the Powers hate you:

  you enjoy the breath of life, you’ve reached a Tyrian city.