The Aeneid (17 page)

                With these words she rose on her wings and flew into the
260         forest. In that instant the blood of my comrades was congealed
                with fear. Their spirits fell and they lost all desire for fight,
                telling me to plead and pray to the creatures for peace, whether
                they were goddesses or foul and deadly birds. Then Father
                Anchises stood on the shore and raised his hands palms upward
                to heaven, calling upon the great gods and pledging to pay them
                all the honours that were their due. ‘O you gods,’ he cried, ‘let
                not this threat be fulfilled. O gods, turn away this fate from us
                and graciously preserve your devoted people.’ He then gave
                orders to pull in the cables, undo the sail-ropes and let them
                run. The south wind filled the canvas, and wind and helmsman
                each set the same course for us as we flew over the foaming
270         waves. Soon there appeared in mid-ocean the woods of
                Zacynthus, and Dulichium, Same and the stone cliffs of Neritos.
                We raced away from the rocks of Ithaca, the kingdom of Laertes,
                
and cursed the land that had nurtured the villain Ulixes. In no
                time there rose before us the cloudy cap of Mount Leucas and
                Apollo’s temple, the terror of sailors. Being weary we set course
                for it and came to land at the little city. The anchors ran out
                from the prows and our ships stood to the shore.

                So at last our feet were on dry land again – more than we had
                dared to hope for. We performed rites of purification to Jupiter
280         and lit altar fires in fulfilment of our vows, crowding the shores
                of Actium with our Trojan games. My comrades stripped and
                made their bodies slippery with oil and wrestled in the style of
                their fathers, as we celebrated our escape and safe voyage past
                so many Greek cities, right through the middle of our enemies.

                In due course the sun rolled on round the great circle of the
                year. Icy winter came and the north winds were roughening the
                seas. I then took a concave shield of bronze, the armour once
                carried by great Abas, and nailed it on the doors of the temple
                where all could see, proclaiming the dedication of it with this
                inscription:

                Then I gave orders to leave port and told the rowers to sit to
290         their benches. They vied with one another to strike the sea and
                sweep the surface of it with their oars. We had soon put the
                cloud-capped citadels of Phaeacia down below the horizon and
                we coasted along Epirus until we entered the harbour of Chaonia
                and then walked up to the lofty city of Buthrotum.

                Here there came to our ears a story almost beyond belief, that
                Helenus, a son of Priam, was king over these Greek cities of
                Epirus, having succeeded to the throne and the bed of Pyrrhus,
                son of Achilles and descendant of Aeacus. Andromache, once
                wife of Hector, had for a second time taken a husband from her
                own people. I was astounded and the heart within me burned
                with love for the man and longing to meet him and find out
300         about these great events. I was walking away from the harbour,
                leaving ships and shore behind me, when I caught sight of
                Andromache, offering a ritual meal and performing rites to the
                dead in a grove in front of a city on the banks of a river Simois,
                
but not the true Simois of Troy. She was pouring a libation to
                the ashes of her husband Hector, calling on his shade to come
                to the empty tomb, a mound of green grass on which she had
                consecrated two altars. There she used to go and weep. When
                she saw me approaching with armed Trojans all about me, she
                was beside herself, numb with fear the moment she saw this
                great miracle, and the warmth of life went out of her bones. She
                fainted, and only after a long time was she at last able to speak
310         to me: ‘Is this a true vision? Is it a true messenger that comes to
                me, son of the goddess? Are you alive? If the light of life has left
                you, why are you here? Where is Hector?’ As she spoke she
                burst into tears and her cries filled all the grove. I could hardly
                find an answer to these wild words, but stammered a few broken
                phrases. ‘I am indeed alive. After all that has happened I still go
                on living. Do not doubt it. What you see is true. But tell me,
                what fate has overtaken you since you were deprived of such a
                husband? What has fallen to the lot of Hector’s Andromache?
                Are you still the wife of Pyrrhus?’

320         She answered, and her voice was low and her eyes downcast:
                ‘The happiest of all Trojan women was the virgin daughter of
                Priam who was made to die by the tomb of her enemy Achilles
                under the high walls of Troy. Polyxena did not have to endure
                the casting of lots or live to be the slave of a conqueror and lie
                in a master’s bed! But we saw our home burned and sailed over
                many seas. We submitted to the arrogance of the house of
                Achilles and the insolence of his son and bore him a child in
                slavery. In due course he turned his attention to marrying a
                Spartan, Hermione, granddaughter of Leda, giving his slave
                Andromache over to his slave Helenus. But Orestes loved Hermione
330         and had hoped to marry her. Incensed at losing her and
                driven on by the madness brought upon him by his own crimes,
                he caught Pyrrhus where Pyrrhus least expected him and slaughtered
                him on the altar he had raised to his father Achilles. At his
                death some of the kingdom he had ruled over came into the
                possession of Helenus, who then called the plains the Chaonian
                plains and the whole district Chaonia after Chaon of Troy. He
                then built a Pergamum, this Trojan citadel on the ridge. But
                what winds and what fates have given you passage here? Is it
                
some god that has driven you to these shores that you did not
                know were ours? What about your boy Ascanius? Is he alive
340         and breathing the air? If he were with you now in Troy…But
                does he ever think of the mother he has lost? Does the old
                courage and manliness ever rise in him at the thought of his
                father Aeneas and his uncle Hector?’

                She was weeping her useless tears and sobbing bitterly as
                these words poured from her when the hero Helenus, son of
                Priam, arrived from the walls of the city with a great escort. He
                recognized his own people and took us gladly to his home. He
                too was weeping and could speak only a few broken words to
                us between his tears. As I walked I recognized a little Troy, a
350         citadel modelled on great Pergamum and a dried-up stream they
                called the Xanthus. There was the Scaean Gate and I embraced
                it. Nor were my Trojans slow to enjoy this Trojan city with
                me. The king received them in a broad colonnade and in the
                middle of the courtyard they poured libations of the wine of
                Bacchus and fed off golden dishes and every man had a goblet
                in his hand.

                Day after day wore on with breezes tempting our sails and
                the canvas filling and swelling in the south wind, until I went to
                the prophet Helenus with this request: ‘You are Trojan born.
360         You can read the signs sent by the gods. You understand the
                will of Phoebus Apollo of Claros, his tripods and his laurels.
                You know the meaning of the stars, the cries of birds and the
                omens of their flight. Come tell me – for every sign I have
                received from heaven has spoken in favour of this journey, and
                I am persuaded by all the divine powers to set course for Italy
                and try to find that distant land. Only the Harpy Celaeno has
                prophesied a strange and monstrous portent, threatening us
                with her deadly anger and all the horrors of famine – come
                tell me now, what dangers am I to avoid as I start upon this
                journey? And as it goes on, what must I do to overcome such
                adversities?’

370         Before replying Helenus first performed a ritual slaughter of
                bullocks and asked for the blessing of the gods. He then loosened
                the ribbons from his consecrated head, and taking my hand, he
                led me in anxious expectation into the mighty presence of the
                
god. In due course he spoke as priest and this was the prophecy
                that came from his hallowed lips. ‘O son of the goddess, the
                proof is full and clear that the highest auspices favour your
                voyage. This is the fate allotted to you by the King of the Gods.
                This is how your fortune rolls and this is the order of its turning.
                My words will tell you a small part of all there is to know so
                that you may trust yourself more safely to cross the seas that
                are waiting to receive you, and come to harbour in Ausonia.
380         The Fates do not allow Helenus to know the rest and Saturnian
                Juno forbids it to be spoken. First, you are wrong to imagine
                that it is a short voyage to Italy and that there are harbours
                close at hand for you to enter. Far and pathless are the ways
                that lie between you and that far distant land. You must first
                bend the oar in the waves of Sicilian seas, then cross the ocean
                of Ausonia and the lakes of the underworld, and pass Aeaea,
                the island of Circe, before you can come to the land which will
                be safe for the founding of your city. I shall give you a sign and
                you must keep it deep within your heart: when in an hour of
                perplexity by the flowing waters of a lonely river you find under
390         some holm-oaks on the shore a great sow with the litter of thirty
                piglets she has farrowed, lying there on her side all white, with
                her young all white around her udders, that will be the place for
                your city. There you will find the rest ordained for all your
                labours. Nor is there any need for you to shudder at the thought
                of eating your tables. The Fates will find a way. Call upon
                Apollo and he will come. But you must quickly leave this land
                of ours and keep well clear of the shore of Italy that lies nearest
                us bathed by the tide of our sea, for hostile Greeks live in all
                these cities. Here Locrians from Narycum have built their walls
400         and the army of the Cretan Idomeneus of Lyctos has seized the
                Sallentine plains in Calabria. Here too is the little town of Petelia
                perching on the wall built for it by Philoctetes, leader of the
                Meliboeans. And when you have passed all these and your
                ships are moored across the sea, when you have raised altars
                on the shore to fulfil your vows, do not forget to veil your
                head in purple cloth so that when the altar fires are burning to
                honour the gods, no enemy presence can intrude and spoil the
                omens. Your comrades and you yourself must keep this mode
                
of sacrifice and your descendants must maintain this purity of
                worship for ever.

410         ‘But when you sail on and the wind carries you near the shore
                of Sicily, and the close-set barriers of Pelorus open before you,
                make for the land to the south and the sea to the south, taking
                the long way round Sicily and keeping well clear of the breakers
                on the coast to starboard. Men say these lands were originally
                one but were long ago convulsed by some great upheaval and
                torn apart. Such changes can occur in the long ageing of time.
                The waves of the sea burst in between them and cut Sicily
                loose from the flank of the land of Hesperia, putting coastlines
                between their fields and cities and flowing in between them in a
420         narrow tide. On your right waits Scylla in ambush and on your
                left the insatiable Charybdis. Three times a day with the deep
                vortex of her whirlpool Charybdis sucks great waves into the
                abyss and then throws them upwards again to lash the stars.
                But Scylla lurks in the dark recesses of her cave and shoots out
                her mouths to seize ships and drag them on to the rocks. She
                has a human face and as far as the groin she is a girl with lovely
                breasts, but below she is a monstrous sea creature, her womb
430         full of wolves, each with a dolphin’s tail. It is better to lose time
                by taking the long course round Cape Pachynus rather than set
                eyes on the hideous Scylla deep in her cave or see those rocks
                loud with the barking of dogs as blue as the sea.