The Aeneid (19 page)

                When he had spoken he clasped our knees, he grovelled on
                his knees, and would not rise. We urged him to explain who he
610         was, what family he came from and what misfortune was driving
                him to this. Father Anchises himself was not slow to offer his
                right hand and that assurance gave him courage. He laid aside
                his fear and told his story: ‘My native land is Ithaca. I am a
                comrade of the unfortunate Ulixes. My name is Achaemenides.
                My father Adamastus being poor, I went to Troy – cursed be
                the day! My comrades, distraught with fear, forgot me and left
                me here in the vast cave of the Cyclops when they crossed that
                cruel threshold to safety. This huge cavern is his home, deep
620         and dark and filthy with the gore of his feasts. He himself is so
                tall that his head knocks against the stars – O you gods, relieve
                the earth of all such monsters. No one dares to look at him or
                speak to him. He feeds on the flesh of his victims and drinks the
                black blood. I have seen him with my own eyes lolling in the
                middle of his cave with two of our men in one huge hand,
                bashing their bodies on the rock till the threshold was swimming
                with blood. I have seen him chewing arms and legs with black
                
gore oozing from them and the warm limbs twitching between
                his teeth. But he met his punishment. The man from Ithaca
630         did not submit to this. Whatever happened Ulixes was always
                Ulixes. As soon as the Cyclops had his fill and was sunk in a
                drunken stupor, lying there with his head back and his neck
                exposed, sprawling all over the cave and belching blood and
                wine and pieces of flesh as he slept, we prayed to the great gods
                and after casting lots spread ourselves out all round him. Then,
                taking a sharp weapon, we drilled the one huge eye that lay, like
                an Argive shield or the lamp of Apollo’s sun, deep set in that
                dreadful forehead. That was how in the end we took sweet
                revenge for the death of our comrades. But you are in danger.
640         You must escape and escape now. Cut your moorings and put
                to sea. You know what Polyphemus is and how huge he is,
                keeping his woolly sheep penned there in his hollow cave and
                squeezing the milk from their udders, but there are a hundred
                other horrible Cyclopes living together near this shore and
                roving the high mountains. This is now the third time I have
                seen the horns of the moon filling with light as I have dragged
                out my existence in the woods alone among the dens and lairs
                of wild beasts, climbing rocks to keep watch on the giant
650         Cyclopes and trembling at the sound of their voices and the
                tread of their feet. My food is miserable. The trees yield me
                some berries and the fruit of the cornel, hard as stone, and I tear
                up herbs by the root and eat them. I have kept constant watch
                but this is the first time I have seen ships coming near this shore.
                I have put myself in your hands, and would have done so
                whoever you had been. It is enough for me to escape from this
                unspeakable people. You can take this life of mine by whatever
                means you please.’

                Scarcely had he finished speaking when we saw the shepherd
                Polyphemus himself high up on the mountain among his sheep,
                heaving his vast bulk down towards the shore he knew so well.
                He was a terrifying sight, huge, hideous, blinded in his one eye
                and using the trunk of a pine tree to guide his hand and give
660         him a firm footing. His woolly sheep were coming with him.
                They were the only pleasure he had left, his sole consolation in
                distress. As soon as he felt the waves deepening and reached the
                
level ocean, he washed away with sea water the blood that was
                still trickling from his gouged-out eye, grinding his teeth and
                moaning, and as he strode now in mid-ocean, the waves still did
                not wet his towering flanks.

                We were terrified and lost no time in taking the fugitive
                aboard – he had suffered enough – and making our escape.
                Keeping silence as we cut the cables we churned the surface of
                the sea, leaning forward and straining at the oars. He heard us,
670         and whirled round in the direction of our voices, but he had no
                chance of laying a hand on us or keeping up with the current of
                the Ionian sea, so he raised a great clamour which set the ocean
                and all its waves shivering. The whole land of Italy trembled
                with fear and the bellowing boomed in the hollow caverns of
                Mount Etna. The tribe of Cyclopes was roused and came rushing
                down from their woods and high mountains to the harbour and
                filled the shore. We saw the brotherhood of Etna standing there
680         helpless, each with his one eye glaring and head held high in the
                sky, a fearsome gathering, standing like high-topped mountain
                oaks or cone-bearing cypresses in Jupiter’s soaring forest or the
                grove of Diana. With terror driving us along we let the sheets
                full out and filled our sails with whatever wind was blowing.
                This is what Helenus had told us not to do. He had advised us
                that it was a narrow passage between Scylla and Charybdis with
                death on either side if I did not hold a steady course. I resolved
                to turn about, and sure enough the north wind came to our
                rescue and blew down the narrow strait from Cape Pelorus. I
                sailed south past the mouth of the river Pantagias with its
                harbour of natural rock, past the bay of Megara and low-lying
690         Thapsus. Achaemenides pointed out such places to us as we took
                him back along the shores he had once sailed in his wanderings as
                a comrade of the unfortunate Ulixes.

                At the entrance to the bay of Syracuse, opposite the wave-beaten
                headland of Plemyrium, there stands an island which
                men of old called Ortygia. The story goes that the river-god
                Alpheus of Elis forced his way here by hidden passages under
                the sea and now mingles with Sicilian waters at the mouth of
                Arethusa’s fountain. Obeying the instructions we had received,
                we worshipped the great gods of the place and I then sailed on
                
leaving behind the rich lands around the marshy river Helorus.
700         From here we rounded Cape Pachynus, Keeping close in to its
                jutting cliffs of rock, and Camerina came in to view in the
                distance, the place the Fates forbade to move, and then the
                Geloan plains and Gela itself, called after its turbulent river.
                Then in the far distance appeared the great walls of Acragas on
                its crag, once famous for the breeding of high-mettled horses.
                Next the winds carried me past Selinus, named after the parsley
                it gave to crown the victors in Greek games, and I steered past
                the dangerous shoals and hidden rocks of Lilybaeum.

                I then put into port at Drepanum, but had little joy of that
710         shore. This was the place where weary as I was with all these
                batterings of sea and storm, to my great grief I lost my father
                Anchises who had been my support in every difficulty and
                disaster. This is where you left me, O best of fathers, whom I
                rescued from so many dangers and all to no purpose. Neither
                Helenus for all his fearsome predictions nor the Harpy Celaeno
                gave me any warning of this sorrow. This was the last of my
                labours. With this my long course was run. From here I sailed,
                and God drove me upon your shores.’

             In these words did Father Aeneas recount his wanderings and
                the fates the gods had sent him, and they all listened. At last he
                was silent. Here he made an end and was at peace.

             But the queen had long since been suffering from love’s deadly
                wound, feeding it with her blood and being consumed by its
                hidden fire. Again and again there rushed into her mind thoughts
                of the great valour of the man and the high glories of his line.
                His features and the words he had spoken had pierced her heart
                and love gave her body no peace or rest. The next day’s dawn
                was beginning to traverse the earth with the lamp of Phoebus’
                sunlight and had moved the dank shadow of night from the sky
                when she spoke these words from the depths of her affliction to
10           her loved and loving sister: ‘O Anna, what fearful dreams I have
                as I lie there between sleeping and waking! What a man is this
                who has just come as a stranger into our house! What a look on
                his face! What courage in his heart! What a warrior! I do believe,
                and I am sure it is true, he is descended from the gods. If there
                is any baseness in a man, it shows as cowardice. Oh how cruelly
                he has been hounded by the Fates! And did you hear him tell
                what a bitter cup of war he has had to drain? If my mind had
                not been set and immovably fixed against joining any man in
                the bonds of marriage ever since death cheated me of my first
                love, if I were not so utterly opposed to the marriage torch and
20           bed, this is the one temptation to which I could possibly have
                succumbed. I will admit it, Anna, ever since the death of my
                poor husband Sychaeus, since my own brother spilt his blood
                and polluted the gods of our home, this is the only man who
                has stirred my feelings and moved my mind to waver: I sense
                the return of the old fires. But I would pray that the earth open
                to its depths and swallow me or that the All-powerful Father of
                the Gods blast me with his thunderbolt and hurl me down to
                
the pale shades of Erebus and its bottomless night before I go
                against my conscience and rescind its laws. The man who first
                joined himself to me has carried away all my love. He shall keep
                it for himself, safe in his grave.’

30           The tears came when she had finished speaking, and streamed
                down upon her breast. But Anna replied: ‘O sister, dearer to me
                than the light of life, are you going to waste away, living alone
                and in mourning all the days of your youth, without knowing
                the delight of children and the rewards of love? Do you believe
                this is what the dead care about when they are buried in the
                grave? Since your great sadness you have paid no heed to any
                man in Libya, or before that in Tyre. You have rejected Iarbas
                and other chiefs bred in Africa, this rich home of triumphant
                warriors. Will you now resist even a love your heart accepts?
                Have you forgotten what sort of people these are in whose land
40           you have settled? On the one side you are beset by invincible
                Gaetulians, by Numidians, a race not partial to the bridle, and
                the inhospitable Syrtes; on the other, waterless desert and fierce
                raiders from Barca. I do not need to tell you about the war being
                raised against you in Tyre and your brother’s threats. I for my
                part believe that it is with the blessing of the gods and the favour
                of Juno that the Trojan ships have held course here through the
                winds. Just think, O my sister, what a city and what a kingdom
                you will see rising here if you are married to such a man! To
                what a pinnacle of glory will Carthage be raised if Trojans are
50           marching at our side! You need only ask the blessing of the gods
                and prevail upon them with sacrifices. Indulge your guest. Stitch
                together some reasons to keep him here while stormy seas and
                the downpours of Orion are exhausting their fury, while his
                ships are in pieces and it is no sky to sail under.’

                With these words Anna lit a fire of wild love in her sister’s
                breast. Where there had been doubt she gave hope and Dido’s
                conscience was overcome. First they approached the shrines and
                went round the altars asking the blessing of the gods. They
                picked out yearling sheep, as ritual prescribed, and sacrificed
                them to Ceres the Lawgiver, to Phoebus Apollo, to Bacchus the
60           Releaser and above all to Juno, the guardian of the marriage
                bond. Dido in all her beauty would hold a sacred dish in her
                
right hand and would pour wine from it between the horns of
                a white cow or she would walk in state to richly smoking
                altars before the faces of the gods, renewing her offerings all
                day long, and when the bellies of the victims were opened she
                would stare into their breathing entrails to read the signs. But
                priests, as we know, are ignorant. What use are prayers and
                shrines to a passionate woman? The flame was eating the soft
                marrow of her bones and the wound lived quietly under her
                breast. Dido was on fire with love and wandered all over the
70           city in her misery and madness like a wounded doe which a
                shepherd hunting in the woods of Crete has caught off guard,
                striking her from long range with steel-tipped shaft; the arrow
                flies and is left in her body without his knowing it; she runs
                away over all the wooded slopes of Mount Dicte, and sticking
                in her side is the arrow that will bring her death.