The Aeneid, Virgil [ebook audio reader .txt] 📗

“All are concern’d to know what place the god
Assign’d, and where determin’d our abode.
My father, long revolving in his mind
The race and lineage of the Trojan kind,
Thus answer’d their demands: ‘Ye princes, hear
Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear.
The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,
Sacred of old to Jove’s imperial name,
In the mid ocean lies, with large command,
And on its plains a hundred cities stand.
Another Ida rises there, and we
From thence derive our Trojan ancestry.
From thence, as ’tis divulg’d by certain fame,
To the Rhoetean shores old Teucrus came;
There fix’d, and there the seat of empire chose,
Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose.
In humble vales they built their soft abodes,
Till Cybele, the mother of the gods,
With tinkling cymbals charm’d th’ Idaean woods,
She secret rites and ceremonies taught,
And to the yoke the savage lions brought.
Let us the land which Heav’n appoints, explore;
Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.
If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,
The third propitious dawn discovers Crete.’
Thus having said, the sacrifices, laid
On smoking altars, to the gods he paid:
A bull, to Neptune an oblation due,
Another bull to bright Apollo slew;
A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please,
And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas.
Ere this, a flying rumour had been spread
That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled,
Expell’d and exil’d; that the coast was free
From foreign or domestic enemy.

“We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea.
By Naxos, fam’d for vintage, make our way;
Then green Donysa pass; and sail in sight
Of Paros’ isle, with marble quarries white.
We pass the scatter’d isles of Cyclades,
That, scarce distinguish’d, seem to stud the seas.
The shouts of sailors double near the shores;
They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars.
‘All hands aloft! for Crete! for Crete!’ they cry,
And swiftly thro’ the foamy billows fly.
Full on the promis’d land at length we bore,
With joy descending on the Cretan shore.
With eager haste a rising town I frame,
Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name:
The name itself was grateful; I exhort
To found their houses, and erect a fort.
Our ships are haul’d upon the yellow strand;
The youth begin to till the labour’d land;
And I myself new marriages promote,
Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot;
When rising vapours choke the wholesome air,
And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year;
The trees devouring caterpillars burn;
Parch’d was the grass, and blighted was the corn:
Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high,
With pestilential heat infects the sky:
My men, some fall, the rest in fevers fry.
Again my father bids me seek the shore
Of sacred Delos, and the god implore,
To learn what end of woes we might expect,
And to what clime our weary course direct.

“ ’Twas night, when ev’ry creature, void of cares,
The common gift of balmy slumber shares:
The statues of my gods (for such they seem’d),
Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem’d,
Before me stood, majestically bright,
Full in the beams of Phoebe’s ent’ring light.
Then thus they spoke, and eas’d my troubled mind:
‘What from the Delian god thou go’st to find,
He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.
Those pow’rs are we, companions of thy fate,
Who from the burning town by thee were brought,
Thy fortune follow’d, and thy safety wrought.
Thro’ seas and lands as we thy steps attend,
So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.
An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,
A town that o’er the conquer’d world shall reign.
Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;
Nor let thy weary mind to labours yield:
But change thy seat; for not the Delian god,
Nor we, have giv’n thee Crete for our abode.
A land there is, Hesperia call’d of old,
(The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold⁠—
Th’ Oenotrians held it once,) by later fame
Now call’d Italia, from the leader’s name.
Jasius there and Dardanus were born;
From thence we came, and thither must return.
Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet.
Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.’

“Astonish’d at their voices and their sight,
(Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;
I saw, I knew their faces, and descried,
In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied;)
I started from my couch; a clammy sweat
On all my limbs and shiv’ring body sate.
To heav’n I lift my hands with pious haste,
And sacred incense in the flames I cast.
Thus to the gods their perfect honours done,
More cheerful, to my good old sire I run,
And tell the pleasing news. In little space
He found his error of the double race;
Not, as before he deem’d, deriv’d from Crete;
No more deluded by the doubtful seat:
Then said: ‘O son, turmoil’d in Trojan fate!
Such things as these Cassandra did relate.
This day revives within my mind what she
Foretold of Troy renew’d in Italy,
And Latian lands; but who could then have thought
That Phrygian gods to Latium should be brought,
Or who believ’d what mad Cassandra taught?
Now let us go where Phoebus leads the way.’

“He said; and we with glad consent obey,
Forsake the seat, and, leaving few behind,
We spread our sails before the willing wind.
Now from the sight of land our galleys move,
With only seas around and skies above;
When o’er our heads descends a burst of rain,
And night with sable clouds involves the main;
The ruffling winds the foamy billows raise;
The scatter’d fleet is forc’d to sev’ral ways;
The face of heav’n is ravish’d from our eyes,
And in redoubled peals the roaring thunder flies.
Cast from our course, we wander in the dark.
No stars to guide, no point of land to mark.
Ev’n Palinurus no distinction found
Betwixt the night and day; such darkness reign’d around.
Three starless nights the doubtful navy strays,
Without distinction, and three sunless days;
The fourth renews the light, and, from our