And cut with well-timed oars the foaming flood,
He weather’d fell Charybdis; but ere long
The skies were darken’d, and the tempest strong;
Then to the Libyan coast he stretches o’er,
And makes at length the Carthaginian shore.
Here Dido, with a hospitable care,
Into her heart receives the wanderer.
From her kind arms the ungrateful hero flies,
The injured queen looks on with dying eyes,
Then to her folly falls a sacrifice.
Aeneas now sets sail, and plying gains
Fair Eryx, where his friend Acestes reigns:
First to his sire does funeral rites decree,
Then gives the signal next, and stands to sea,
Outruns the islands where volcanoes roar,
Gets clear of sirens and their faithless shore;
But loses Palinurus in the way;
Then makes Inarime and Prochyta.
Transformation of Cercopians Into Apes
The inhabitants of the island Pithecusa are changed into monkeys as a punishment of their dishonesty.
The galleys now by Pithecusa pass;
The name is from the natives of the place.
The father of the gods detesting lies,
Oft with abhorrence heard their perjuries.
The abandon’d race, transform’d to beasts, began
To mimic the impertinence of man:
Flatnosed and furrow’d, with grimace they grin,
And look to what they were too near akin;
Merry in make, and busy to no end,
This moment they divert, the next offend:
So much this species of their past retains,
Though lost the language, yet the noise remains.
Aeneas Descends to Hell
Aeneas entreats the sibyl to permit him to seek the shade of his father in the Elysian fields.
Now, on his right, he leaves Parthenope,
His left, Misenus jutting in the sea;
Arrives at Cuma, and with awe survey’d
The grotto of the venerable maid:
Begs leave through black Avernus to retire,
And view the much-loved manes of his sire.
Straight the divining virgin raised her eyes;
And, foaming with a holy rage, replies:
“Oh thou, whose worth thy wondrous works proclaim,
The flames thy piety, the world thy fame,
Though great be thy request, yet shalt thou see
The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy,
Thy parent’s shade. This arm thy steps shall guide:
To suppliant virtue nothing is denied.”
She spoke, and pointing to the golden bough,
Which in the Avernian grove refulgent grew,
“Seize that,” she bids: he listens to the maid,
Then views the mournful mansions of the dead;
The shade of great Anchises, and the place
By fates determined to the Trojan race.
As back to upper light the hero came,
He thus salutes the visionary dame:
“Oh! whether some propitious deity,
Or loved by those bright rulers of the sky,
With grateful incense I shall style you one,
And doom no godhead greater than your own.
’Twas you restored me from the realms of night,
And gave me to behold the fields of light,
To feel the breezes of congenial air,
And nature’s best benevolence to share.”
Story of the Sibyl
Apollo becomes enamoured of the sibyl, and offers to grant whatever she asks—The request is made of a continuance of life for as many years as there are grains in a heap of sand; but the enjoyment of health and beauty are unfortunately forgotten by the applicant.
“I am no deity,” replied the dame,
“But mortal, and religious rites disclaim,
Yet had avoided death’s tyrannic sway,
Had I consented to the god of day.
With promises he sought my love, and said:
‘Have all you wish, my fair Cumaean maid.’
I paused: then pointing to a heap of sand,
‘For every grain, to live a year demand.’
But, ah! unmindful of the effect of time,
Forgot to covenant for youth and prime.
The smiling bloom I boasted once is gone
And feeble age with lagging limbs creeps on.
Seven centuries have I lived; three more fulfil
The period of the years to finish still.
Who’ll think that Phoebus, dress’d in youth divine,
Had once believed his lustre less than mine?
This wither’d frame (so fates have will’d) shall waste
To nothing but prophetic words at last.”
The sibyl mounting now from nether skies,
And the famed Ilian prince at Cuma rise.
He sail’d, and near the place to anchor came,
Since call’d Cajeta from his nurse’s name;
Here did the luckless Macareus, a friend
To wise Ulysses, his long labours end;
Here, wandering, Achaemenides he meets,
And, sudden, thus his late associate greets:
“Whence came you here, oh friend, and whither bound?
All gave you lost on fair cyclopean ground;
A Greek’s at last aboard a Trojan found.”
Adventures of Achaemenides
Achaemenides, a companion of Ulysses, is left behind on the coast of Sicily, where Aeneas finds him on his voyage to Italy.
Thus Achaemenides: “With thanks I name
Aeneas, and his piety proclaim.
I ’scaped the cyclop through the hero’s aid,
Else in his maw my mangled limbs had laid.
When first your navy under sail he found,
He raved till Aetna labour’d with the sound;
Raging, he stalk’d along the mountain’s side,
And vented clouds of breath at every stride;
His staff a mountain ash, and in the clouds,
Oft as he walks, his grisly front he shrowds;
Eyeless he groped about with vengeful haste,
And justled promontories as he pass’d:
Then heaved a rock’s high summit to the main,
And bellow’d like some bursting hurricane:
“ ‘Oh! could I seize Ulysses in his flight,
How unlamented were my loss of sight!
These jaws should piecemeal tear each panting vein,
Grind every crackling bone, and pound his brain.’
“As thus he raved my joints with horror shook;
The tide of blood my chilling heart forsook;
I saw him once disgorge huge morsels, raw,
Of wretches undigested in his maw.
From the pale breathless trunks whole limbs he tore,
His beard all clotted with o’erflowing gore.
My anxious hours I pass’d in caves, my food
Was forest fruits and wildings of the wood;
At length a sail I wafted, and aboard
My fortune found a hospitable lord.
“Now, in return, your own adventures tell,
And what, since first you put to sea, befell.”
Adventures of Macareus
Macareus relates the adventures of Ulysses and his companions during their voyage to Ithaca, with the enchantments of Circe, who detains the hero at her court twelve months.
Then Macareus: “There reign’d a prince of fame
O’er Tuscan seas, and Aeolus his name.
A largess to Ulysses he consign’d,
And in a steer’s tough hide enclosed a wind;
Nine days before the swelling gale we ran,
The tenth to make the meeting land began,
When now the merry mariners, to find
Imagined wealth within, the bag unbind.
Forthwith outrush’d a gust, which backward bore
Our galleys to the Laestrygonian shore,
Whose crown Antiphates
