This contest sped, good Aeneas moved to a grassy plain girt all about with winding wooded hills, and amid the valley an amphitheatre, whither, with a concourse of many thousands, the hero advanced and took his seat on a mound. Here he allures with rewards and offer of prizes those who will try their hap in the fleet foot-race. Trojans and Sicilians gather mingling from all sides, Nisus and Euryalus foremost . . . Euryalus in the flower of youth and famed for beauty, Nisus for pure love of the boy. Next follows renowned Diores, of Priam's royal line; after him Salius and Patron together, the one Acarnanian, the other Tegean by family and of Arcadian blood; next two men of Sicily, Helymus and Panopes, foresters and attendants on old Acestes; many besides whose fame is hid in obscurity. Then among them all Aeneas spoke thus: 'Hearken to this, and attend in good cheer. None out of this number will I let go without a gift. To each will I give two glittering Gnosian spearheads of polished steel, and an axe chased with silver to bear away; one and all shall be honoured thus. The three foremost shall receive prizes, and have pale olive bound about their head. The first shall have a caparisoned horse as conqueror; the second an Amazonian quiver filled with arrows of Thrace, girt about by a broad belt of gold, and on the link of the clasp a polished gem; let the third depart with this Argolic helmet for recompense.' This said, they take their place, and the signal once heard, dart over the course and leave the line, pouring forth like a storm-cloud while they mark the goal. Nisus gets away first, and shoots out far in front of the throng, fleeter than the winds or the winged thunderbolt. Next to him, but next by a long gap, Salius follows; then, left a space behind him, Euryalus third . . . and Helymus comes after Euryalus; and close behind him, lo! Diores goes flying, just grazing foot with foot, hard on his shoulder; and if a longer space were left, he would creep out past him and win the tie. And now almost in the last space, they began to come up breathless to the goal, when unfortunate Nisus trips on the slippery blood of the slain steers, where haply it had spilled over the ground and wetted the green grass. Here, just in the flush of victory, he lost his feet; they slid away on the ground they pressed, and he fell forward right among the ordure and blood of the sacrifice. Yet forgot he not his darling Euryalus; for rising, he flung himself over the slippery ground in front of Salius, and he rolled over and lay all along on the hard sand. Euryalus shoots by, wins and holds the first place his friend gave, and flies on amid prosperous clapping and cheers. Behind Helymus comes up, and Diores, now third for the palm. At this Salius fills with loud clamour the whole concourse of the vast theatre, and the lords who looked on in front, demanding restoration of his defrauded prize. Euryalus is strong in favour, and beauty in tears, and the merit that gains grace from so fair a form. Diores supports him, who succeeded to the palm, so he loudly cries, and bore off the last prize in vain, if the highest honours be restored to Salius. Then lord Aeneas speaks: 'For you, O boys, your rewards remain assured, and none alters the prizes' order: let me be allowed to pity a friend's innocent mischance.' So speaking, he gives to Salius a vast Gaetulian lion-skin, with shaggy masses of hair and claws of gold. 'If this,' cries Nisus, 'is the reward of defeat, and thy pity is stirred for the fallen, what fit recompense wilt thou give to Nisus? to my excellence the first crown was due, had not I, like Salius, met Fortune's hostility.' And with the words he displayed his face and limbs foul with the wet dung. His lord laughed kindly on him, and bade a shield be brought forth, the workmanship of Didymaon, torn by him from the hallowed gates of Neptune's Grecian temple; with this special prize he rewards his excellence.
Thereafter, when the races are finished and the gifts fulfilled: 'Now,' he cries, 'come, whoso hath in him valour and ready heart, and lift up his arms with gauntleted hands.' So speaks he, and sets forth a double prize of battle; for the conqueror a bullock gilt and garlanded; a sword and beautiful helmet to console the conquered. Straightway without pause Dares issues to view in his vast strength, rising amid loud murmurs of the people; he who alone was wont to meet Paris in combat; he who, at the mound where princely Hector lies, struck down as he came the vast bulk upborne by conquering Butes, of Amycus' Bebrycian line, and stretched him in death on the yellow sand. Such was Dares; at once he raises his head high for battle, displays his broad shoulders, and stretches and swings his arms right and left, lashing the air with blows. For him another is required; but none out of all the train durst approach or put the gloves on his hands. So he takes his stand exultant before Aeneas' feet, deeming he excelled all in victories; and thereon without more delay grasps the bull's horn with his left hand, and speaks thus: 'Goddess-born, if no man dare trust himself to battle, to what conclusion shall I stand? how long is it seemly to keep me? bid me carry off thy gifts.' Therewith all the Dardanians murmured assent, and bade yield him the promised prize. At this aged Acestes spoke sharply to Entellus, as he sate next him on the green cushion of grass: 'Entellus, bravest of heroes once of old in vain, wilt thou thus idly let a gift so great be borne away uncontested? Where now prithee is divine Eryx, thy master of fruitless fame? where thy renown over all Sicily, and those spoils hanging in thine house?' Thereat he: 'Desire of glory is not gone, nor ambition checked by fear; but torpid age dulls my chilly blood, and my strength of limb is numb and outworn. If I had what once was mine, if I had now that prime of years, yonder braggart's boast and confidence, it had taken no prize of goodly bullock to allure me; nor heed I these gifts.' So he spoke, and on that flung down a pair of gloves of giant weight, with whose hard hide bound about his wrists valiant Eryx was wont to come to battle. They stood amazed; so stiff and grim lay the vast sevenfold oxhide sewed in with lead and iron. Dares most of all shrinks far back in horror, and the noble son of Anchises turns round this way and that their vast weight and voluminous folds. Then the old man spoke thus in deep accents: 'How, had they seen the gloves that were Hercules' own armour, and the fatal fight on this very beach? These arms thy brother Eryx once wore; thou seest them yet stained with blood and spattered brains. In them he stood to face great Alcides; to them was I used while fuller blood supplied me strength, and envious old age had not yet strewn her snows on either temple. But if Dares of Troy will have none of these our arms, and good Aeneas is resolved on it, and my patron Acestes approves, let us make the battle even. See, I give up the gauntlets of Eryx; dismiss thy fears; and do thou put off thy Trojan gloves.' So spoke he, and throwing back the fold of his raiment from his shoulders, he bares the massive joints and limbs, the great bones and muscles, and stands up huge in the middle of the ground. Then Anchises' lordly seed brought out equal gloves and bound the hands of both in matched arms. Straightway each took his stand on tiptoe, and undauntedly raised his arms high in air. They lift their heads right back and away out of reach of blows, and make hand play through hand, inviting attack; the one nimbler of foot and confident in his youth, the other mighty in mass of limb, but his knees totter tremulous and slow, and sick panting shakes his vast frame. Many a mutual blow they deliver in vain, many an one they redouble on chest and side, sounding hollow and loud: hands play fast about ear and temple, and jawbones clash under the hard strokes. Old Entellus stands immoveable and astrain, only parrying hits with body and watchful eye. The other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. Entellus rose and struck clean out with his right downwards; his quick opponent saw the descending blow before it came, and slid his body rapidly out of its way. Entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on Erymanthus or mighty Ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots. Teucrians and men of Sicily rise eagerly; a cry goes up, and Acestes himself runs forward, and pityingly lifts his friend and birthmate from the ground. But the hero, not dulled nor dismayed by his mishap, returns the keener to battle, and grows violent in wrath, while shame and resolved valour kindle his strength. All afire, he hunts Dares headlong over the lists, and redoubles his blows now with right hand, now with left; no breath nor pause; heavy as hailstones rattle on the roof from a storm-cloud, so thickly shower the blows from both his hands as he buffets Dares to and fro. Then lord Aeneas allowed not wrath to swell higher or Entellus to rage out his bitterness, but stopped the fight and rescued the exhausted Dares, saying thus in soothing words: 'Unhappy! what height of madness hath seized thy mind? Knowest thou not the strength is another's and the gods are changed? Yield thou to Heaven.' And with the words he proclaimed the battle over. But him his faithful mates lead to the ships dragging his knees feebly, swaying his head from side to side, and spitting from his mouth clotted blood mingled with teeth. At summons they bear away the helmet and shield, and leave palm and bull to Entellus. At this the conqueror, swelling in pride over the bull, cries: 'Goddess-born, and you, O Trojans! learn thus what my strength of body was in its prime, and from what a death Dares is saved by your recall.' He spoke, and stood right opposite in face of the bullock as it stood by, the prize of battle; then drew back his hand, and swinging the hard gauntlet sheer down between the horns, smashed the bones in upon the shattered brain. The ox rolls over, and quivering and lifeless lies along the ground. Above it he utters these deep accents: 'This life, Eryx, I give to thee, a better payment than Dares' death; here I lay down my gloves and unconquered skill.'
Forthwith Aeneas invites all that will to the contest of the swift arrow, and proclaims the prizes. With his strong hand he uprears the mast of Serestus' ship, and on a cord crossing it hangs from the masthead a fluttering pigeon as mark for their steel. They gather, and a helmet of brass takes the lots as they throw them in. First in rank, and before them all, amid prosperous cheers, comes out Hippocoön son of Hyrtacus; and Mnestheus follows on him, but now conqueror in the ship race, Mnestheus with his chaplet of green olive. Third is Eurytion, thy brother, O Pandarus, great in renown, thou who of old, when prompted to shatter the truce, didst hurl the first shaft amid the Achaeans. Last of all, and at the bottom of the helmet, sank Acestes, he too venturing to set hand to the task of youth. Then each and all they strongly bend their bows into a curve and pull shafts from their quivers. And first the arrow of the son of Hyrtacus, flying through heaven from the sounding string, whistles through the fleet breezes, and reaches and sticks fast full in the mast's wood: the mast quivered, and the bird fluttered her feathers in affright, and the whole ground rang with loud clapping. Next valiant Mnestheus took his stand with bow bent, aiming high with levelled eye and arrow; yet could not, unfortunate! hit the bird herself with his steel, but cut the knotted hempen bands that tied her foot as she hung from the masthead; she winged her flight into the dark windy clouds. Then Eurytion, who ere now held the arrow ready on his bended bow, swiftly called in prayer to his brother, marked the pigeon as she now went down the empty sky exultant on clapping wings; and as she passed under a dark cloud, struck her: she fell breathless, and, leaving her life in the aery firmament, slid down carrying the arrow that pierced her. Acestes alone was over, and the prize lost; yet he sped his arrow up into the air, to display his lordly skill and resounding bow. At this a sudden sign meets their eyes, mighty in augural presage, as the high event taught thereafter, and in late days boding seers prophesied of the omen. For the flying reed blazed out amid the swimming clouds, traced its path in flame, and burned away on the light winds; even as often stars shooting from their sphere draw a train athwart the sky. Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment, praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts, speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour. This gift shalt thou have as from aged Anchises' own hand, a bowl embossed with figures, that once Cisseus of Thrace gave my father Anchises to bear, in high token and guerdon of affection.' So speaking, he twines green bay about his brows, and proclaims Acestes conqueror first before them all. Nor did gentle Eurytion, though he alone struck the bird down from the lofty sky, grudge him to be preferred in honour. Next comes for his prize he who cut the cord; he last, who pierced the mast with his winged reed.
But lord Aeneas, ere yet the contest is sped, calls to him Epytides, guardian and attendant of ungrown Iülus, and thus speaks into his faithful ear: 'Up and away, and tell Ascanius, if he now holds his band of boys ready, and their horses arrayed for the charge, to defile his squadrons to his grandsire's honour in bravery of arms.' So says he, and himself bids all the crowding throng withdraw from the long racecourse and leave the lists free. The boys move in before their parents' faces, glittering in rank on their bitted horses; as they go all the people of Troy and Trinacria murmur and admire. On the hair of them all rests a garland fitly trimmed; each carries two cornel spear-shafts tipped with steel; some have polished quivers on their shoulders; above their breast and round their neck goes a flexible circlet of twisted gold. Three in number are the troops of riders, and three captains gallop up and down; following each in equal command rides a glittering division of twelve boys. One youthful line goes rejoicingly behind little Priam, renewer of his grandsire's name, thy renowned seed, O Polites, and destined to people Italy; he rides a Thracian horse dappled with spots of white, showing white on his pacing pasterns and white on his high forehead. Second is Atys, from whom the Latin Atii draw their line, little Atys, boy beloved of the boy Iülus. Last and excellent in beauty before them all, Iülus rode in on a Sidonian horse that Dido the bright had given him for token and pledge of love. The rest of them are mounted on old Acestes' Sicilian horses. . . . The Dardanians greet their shy entrance with applause, and rejoice at the view, and recognise the features of their parents of old. When they have ridden merrily round all the concourse of their gazing friends, Epytides shouts from afar the signal they await, and sounds his whip. They gallop apart in equal numbers, and open their files three and three in deploying bands, and again at the call wheel about and bear down with levelled arms. Next they start on other charges and other retreats in corresponsive spaces, and interlink circle with circle, and wage the armed phantom of battle. And now they bare their backs in flight, now turn their lances to the charge, now plight peace and ride on side by side. As once of old, they say, the labyrinth in high Crete had a tangled path between blind walls, and a thousand ways of doubling treachery, where tokens to follow failed in the maze unmastered and irrecoverable: even in such a track do the children of Troy entangle their footsteps and weave the game of flight and battle; like dolphins who, swimming through the wet seas, cut Carpathian or Libyan. . . .
This fashion of riding, these games Ascanius first revived, when he girt Alba the Long about with walls, and taught their celebration to the Old Latins in the way of his own boyhood, with the youth of Troy about him. The Albans taught it their children; on from them mighty Rome received it and kept the ancestral observance; and now it is called Troy, and the boys the Trojan troop.
Thus far sped the sacred contests to their holy lord. Just at this Fortune broke faith and grew estranged. While they pay the due rites to the tomb with diverse games, Juno, daughter of Saturn, sends Iris down the sky to the Ilian fleet, and breathes a gale to speed her on, revolving many a thought, and not yet satiate of the ancient pain. She, speeding her way along the thousand-coloured bow, runs swiftly, seen of none, down her maiden path. She discerns the vast concourse, and traverses the shore, and sees the haven abandoned and the fleet left alone. But far withdrawn by the solitary verge of the sea the Trojan women wept their lost Anchises, and as they wept gazed all together on the fathomless flood. 'Alas! after all those weary waterways, that so wide a sea is yet to come!' such is the single cry of all. They pray for a city, sick of the burden of their sea-sorrow. So she darts among them, not witless to harm, and lays by face and raiment of a goddess: she becomes Beroë, the aged wife of Tmarian Doryclus, who had once had birth and name and children, and in this guise goes among the Dardanian matrons. 'Ah, wretched we,' she cries, 'whom hostile Achaean hands did not drag to death beneath our native city! ah hapless race, for what destruction does Fortune hold thee back? The seventh summer now declines since Troy's overthrow, while we pass measuring out by so many stars the harbourless rocks over every water and land, pursuing all the while over the vast sea an Italy that flies us, and tossing on the waves. Here are our brother Eryx' borders, and Acestes' welcome: who denies us to cast up walls and give our citizens a city? O country, O household gods vainly rescued from the foe! shall there never be a Trojan town to tell of? shall I nowhere see a Xanthus and a Simoïs, the rivers of Hector? Nay, up and join me in burning with fire these ill-ominous ships. For in sleep the phantom of Cassandra the soothsayer seemed to give me blazing brands: Here seek your Troy, she said; here is your home. Now is the time to do it; nor do these high portents allow delay. Behold four altars to Neptune; the god himself lends the firebrand and the nerve.' Speaking thus, at once she strongly seizes the fiery weapon, and with straining hand whirls it far upreared, and flings: the souls of the Ilian women are startled and their wits amazed. At this one of their multitude, and she the eldest, Pyrgo, nurse in the palace to all Priam's many children: 'This is not Beroë, I tell you, O mothers; this is not the wife of Doryclus of Rhoeteum. Mark the lineaments of divine grace and the gleaming eyes, what a breath is hers, what a countenance, and the sound of her voice and the steps of her going. I, I time agone left Beroë apart, sick and fretting that she alone must have no part in this our service, nor pay Anchises his due sacrifice.' So spoke she. . . . But the matrons at first, dubious and wavering, gazed on the ships with malignant eyes, between the wretched longing for the land they trod and the fated realm that summoned them: when the goddess rose through the sky on poised wings, and in her flight drew a vast bow beneath the clouds. Then indeed, amazed at the tokens and driven by madness, they raise a cry and snatch fire from the hearths within; others plunder the altars, and cast on brushwood boughs and brands. The Fire-god rages with loose rein over thwarts and oars and hulls of painted fir. Eumelus carries the news of the burning ships to the grave of Anchises and the ranges of the theatre; and looking back, their own eyes see the floating cloud of dark ashes. And in a moment Ascanius, as he rode gaily before his cavalry, spurred his horse to the disordered camp; nor can his breathless guardians hold him back. 'What strange madness is this?' he cries; 'whither now hasten you, whither, alas and woe! O citizens? not on the foe nor on some hostile Argive camp; it is your own hopes you burn. Behold me, your Ascanius!' and he flung before his feet the empty helmet, put on when he roused the mimicry of war. Aeneas and the Trojan train together hurry to the spot. But the women scatter apart in fear all over the beach, and stealthily seek the woods and the hollow rocks they find: they loathe their deed and the daylight, and with changed eyes know their people, and Juno is startled out of their breast. But not thereby do the flames of the burning lay down their unconquered strength; under the wet oak the seams are alive, spouting slow coils of smoke; the creeping heat devours the hulls, and the destroyer takes deep hold of all: nor does the heroes' strength avail nor the floods they pour in. Then good Aeneas rent away the raiment from his shoulders and called the gods to aid, stretching forth his hands: 'Jupiter omnipotent, if thou hatest not Troy yet wholly to her last man, if thine ancient pity looks at all on human woes, now, O Lord, grant our fleet to escape the flame, and rescue from doom the slender Teucrian estate. Or do thou plunge to death this remnant, if I deserve it, with levelled thunderbolt, and here with thine own hand smite us down.' Scarce had he uttered this, when a black tempest rages in streaming showers; earth trembles to the thunder on plain and steep; the water-flood rushes in torrents from the whole heaven amid black darkness and volleying blasts of the South. The ships are filled from overhead, the half-burnt timbers are soaking; till all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls, but four that are lost, are rescued from destruction.
But lord Aeneas, dismayed by the bitter mischance, revolved at heart this way and that his shifting weight of care, whether, forgetting fate, he should rest in Sicilian fields, or reach forth to the borders of Italy. Then old Nautes, whom Tritonian Pallas taught like none other, and made famous in eminence of art—she granted him to reply what the gods' heavy anger menaced or what the order of fate claimed—he then in accents of comfort thus speaks to Aeneas:
'Goddess-born, follow we fate's ebb and flow, whatsoever it shall be; fortune must be borne to be overcome. Acestes is of thine own divine Dardanian race; take him, for he is willing, to join thee in common counsel; deliver to him those who are over, now these ships are lost, and those who are quite weary of thy fortunes and the great quest. Choose out the old men stricken in years, and the matrons sick of the sea, and all that is weak and fearful of peril in thy company. Let this land give a city to the weary; they shall be allowed to call their town Acesta by name.'
Then, indeed, kindled by these words of his aged friend, his spirit is distracted among all his cares. And now black Night rose chariot-borne, and held the sky; when the likeness of his father Anchises seemed to descend from heaven and suddenly utter thus:
'O son, more dear to me than life once of old while life was yet mine; O son, hard wrought by the destinies of Ilium! I come hither by Jove's command, who drove the fire from thy fleets, and at last had pity out of high heaven. Obey thou the fair counsel aged Nautes now gives. Carry through to Italy thy chosen men and bravest souls; in Latium must thou war down a people hard and rough in living. Yet ere then draw thou nigh the nether chambers of Dis, and in the deep tract of hell come, O son, to meet me. For I am not held in cruel Tartarus among wailing ghosts, but inhabit Elysium and the sweet societies of the good. Hither with much blood of dark cattle shall the holy Sibyl lead thee. Then shalt thou learn of all thy line, and what city is given thee. And now farewell; dank Night wheels her mid-career, and even now I feel the stern breath of the panting horses of the East.' He ended, and retreated like a vapour into thin air. 'Ah, whither hurriest thou?' cries Aeneas; 'whither so fast away? From whom fliest thou? or who withholds thee from our embrace?' So speaking, he kindles the sleeping embers of the fire, and with holy meal and laden censer does sacrifice to the tutelar of Pergama and hoar Vesta's secret shrine.
Straightway he summons his crews and Acestes first of all, and instructs them of Jove's command and his beloved father's precepts, and what is now his fixed mind and purpose. They linger not in counsel, nor does Acestes decline his bidden duty: they enrol the matrons in their town, and plant a people there, souls that will have none of glory. The rest repair the thwarts and replace the ships' timbers that the flames had gnawed upon, and fit up oars and rigging, little in number, but alive and valiant for war. Meanwhile Aeneas traces the town with the plough and allots the homesteads; this he bids be Ilium, and these lands Troy. Trojan Acestes, rejoicing in his kingdom, appoints a court and gathers his senators to give them statutes. Next, where the crest of Eryx is neighbour to the stars, a dwelling is founded to Venus the Idalian; and a priest and breadth of holy wood is attached to Anchises' grave.
And now for nine days all the people hath feasted, and offering been paid at the altars; quiet breezes have smoothed the ocean floor, and the gathering south wind blows, calling them again to sea. A mighty weeping arises along the winding shore; a night and a day they linger in mutual embraces. The very mothers now, the very men to whom once the sight of the sea seemed cruel and the name intolerable, would go on and endure the journey's travail to the end. These Aeneas comforts with kindly words, and commends with tears to his kinsman Acestes' care. Then he bids slay three steers to Eryx and a she-lamb to the Tempests, and loose the hawser as is due. Himself, his head bound with stripped leaves of olive, he stands apart on the prow holding the cup, and casts the entrails into the salt flood and pours liquid wine. A wind rising astern follows them forth on their way. Emulously the crews strike the water, and sweep through the seas.
But Venus meanwhile, wrought upon with distress, accosts Neptune, and thus pours forth her heart's complaint: 'Juno's bitter wrath and heart insatiable compel me, O Neptune, to sink to the uttermost of entreaty: neither length of days nor any goodness softens her, nor doth Jove's command and fate itself break her to desistence. It is not enough that her accursed hatred hath devoured the Phrygian city from among the people, and exhausted on it the stores of vengeance; still she pursues this remnant, the bones and ashes of murdered Troy. I pray she know why her passion is so fierce. Thyself art my witness what a sudden stir she raised of late on the Libyan waters, flinging all the seas to heaven in vain reliance on Aeolus' blasts; this she dared in thy realm. . . . Lo too, driving the Trojan matrons into guilt, she hath foully burned their ships, and forced them, their fleet lost, to leave the crews to an unknown land. Let the remnant, I beseech thee, give their sails to thy safe keeping across the seas; let them reach Laurentine Tiber; if I ask what is permitted, if fate grants them a city there.'
Then the son of Saturn, compeller of the ocean deep, uttered thus: 'It is wholly right, O Cytherean, that thy trust should be in my realm, whence thou drawest birth; and I have deserved it: often have I allayed the rage and full fury of sky and sea. Nor less on land, I call Xanthus and Simoïs to witness, hath been my care of thine Aeneas. When Achilles pursued the Trojan armies and hurled them breathless on their walls, and sent many thousands to death,—when the choked rivers groaned and Xanthus could not find passage or roll out to sea,—then I snatched Aeneas away in sheltering mist as he met the brave son of Peleus outmatched in strength and gods, eager as I was to overthrow the walls of perjured Troy that mine own hands had built. Now too my mind rests the same; dismiss thy fear. In safety, as thou desirest, shall he reach the haven of Avernus. One will there be alone whom on the flood thou shalt lose and require; one life shall be given for many. . . .'
With these words the goddess' bosom is soothed to joy. Then their lord yokes his wild horses with gold and fastens the foaming bits, and letting all the reins run slack in his hand, flies lightly in his sea-coloured chariot over the ocean surface. The waves sink to rest, and the swoln water-ways smooth out under the thundering axle; the storm-clouds scatter from the vast sky. Diverse shapes attend him, monstrous whales, and Glaucus' aged choir, and Palaemon, son of Ino, the swift Tritons, and Phorcus with all his army. Thetis and Melite keep the left, and maiden Panopea, Nesaea and Spio, Thalia and Cymodoce.
At this lord Aeneas' soul is thrilled with soft counterchange of delight. He bids all the masts be upreared with speed, and the sails stretched on the yards. Together all set their sheets, and all at once slacken their canvas to left and again to right; together they brace and unbrace the yard-arms aloft; prosperous gales waft the fleet along. First, in front of all, Palinurus steered the close column; the rest under orders ply their course by his. And now dewy Night had just reached heaven's mid-cone; the sailors, stretched on their hard benches under the oars, relaxed their limbs in quiet rest: when Sleep, sliding lightly down from the starry sky, parted the shadowy air and cleft the dark, seeking thee, O Palinurus, carrying dreams of bale to thee who dreamt not of harm, and lit on the high stern, a god in Phorbas' likeness, dropping this speech from his lips: 'Palinurus son of Iasus, the very seas bear our fleet along; the breezes breathe steadily; for an hour rest is given. Lay down thine head, and steal thy worn eyes from their toil. I myself for a little will take thy duty in thy stead.' To whom Palinurus, scarcely lifting his eyes, returns: 'Wouldst thou have me ignorant what the calm face of the brine means, and the waves at rest? Shall I have faith in this perilous thing? How shall I trust Aeneas to deceitful breezes, and the placid treachery of sky that hath so often deceived me?' Such words he uttered, and, clinging fast to the tiller, slackened hold no whit, and looked up steadily on the stars. Lo! the god shakes over either temple a bough dripping with Lethean dew and made slumberous with the might of Styx, and makes his swimming eyes relax their struggles. Scarcely had sleep begun to slacken his limbs unaware, when bending down, he flung him sheer into the clear water, tearing rudder and half the stern away with him, and many a time crying vainly on his comrades: himself he rose on flying wings into the thin air. None the less does the fleet run safe on its sea path, and glides on unalarmed in lord Neptune's assurance. Yes, and now they were sailing in to the cliffs of the Sirens, dangerous once of old and white with the bones of many a man; and the hoarse rocks echoed afar in the ceaseless surf; when her lord felt the ship rocking astray for loss of her helmsman, and himself steered her on over the darkling water, sighing often the while, and heavy at heart for his friend's mischance. 'Ah too trustful in sky's and sea's serenity, thou shalt lie, O Palinurus, naked on an alien sand!'