The Æneids of Virgil, Done into English Verse. Virgil

Spake out:

       "And must I, vanquished, leave the deed I have begun,

       Nor save the Italian realm a king who comes of Teucer's son?

       The Fates forbid it me forsooth? And Pallas, might not she

       Burn up the Argive fleet and sink the Argives in the sea40

       For Oileus' only fault and fury that he wrought?

       She hurled the eager fire of Jove from cloudy dwelling caught,

       And rent the ships and with the wind the heaped-up waters drew,

       And him a-dying, and all his breast by wildfire smitten through,

       The whirl of waters swept away on spiky crag to bide.

       While I, who go forth Queen of Gods, the very Highest's bride

       And sister, must I wage a war for all these many years

       With one lone race? What! is there left a soul that Juno fears

       Henceforth? or will one suppliant hand gifts on mine altar lay?"

      So brooding in her fiery heart the Goddess went her way50

       Unto the fatherland of storm, full fruitful of the gale,

       Æolia hight, where Æolus is king of all avail,

       And far adown a cavern vast the bickering of the winds

       And roaring tempests of the world with bolt and fetter binds:

       They set the mountains murmuring much, a-growling angrily

       About their bars, while Æolus sits in his burg on high,

       And, sceptre-holding, softeneth them, and strait their wrath doth keep:

       Yea but for that the earth and sea, and vault of heaven the deep,

       They eager-swift would roll away and sweep adown of space:

       For fear whereof the Father high in dark and hollow place60

       Hath hidden them, and high above a world of mountains thrown

       And given them therewithal a king, who, taught by law well known,

       Now draweth, and now casteth loose the reins that hold them in:

       To whom did suppliant Juno now in e'en such words begin:

      "The Father of the Gods and men hath given thee might enow,

       O Æolus, to smooth the sea, and make the storm-wind blow.

       Hearken! a folk, my very foes, saileth the Tyrrhene main

       Bearing their Troy to Italy, and Gods that were but vain:

       Set on thy winds, and overwhelm their sunken ships at sea,

       Or prithee scattered cast them forth, things drowned diversedly.70

       Twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair:

       Of whom indeed Deïopea is fairest fashioned there.

       I give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own

       To wear away the years with thee, for thy deserving shown

       To me this day; of offspring fair she too shall make thee sire."

      To whom spake Æolus: "O Queen, to search out thy desire

       Is all thou needest toil herein; from me the deed should wend.

       Thou mak'st my realm; the sway of all, and Jove thou mak'st my friend,

       Thou givest me to lie with Gods when heavenly feast is dight,

       And o'er the tempest and the cloud thou makest me of might."80

      Therewith against the hollow hill he turned him spear in hand

       And hurled it on the flank thereof, and as an ordered band

       By whatso door the winds rush out o'er earth in whirling blast,

       And driving down upon the sea its lowest deeps upcast.

       The East, the West together there, the Afric, that doth hold

       A heart fulfilled of stormy rain, huge billows shoreward rolled.

       Therewith came clamour of the men and whistling through the shrouds

       And heaven and day all suddenly were swallowed by the clouds

       Away from eyes of Teucrian men; night on the ocean lies,

       Pole thunders unto pole, and still with wildfire glare the skies,90

       And all things hold the face of death before the seamen's eyes.

      Now therewithal Æneas' limbs grew weak with chilly dread,

       He groaned, and lifting both his palms aloft to heaven, he said:

       "O thrice and four times happy ye, that had the fate to fall

       Before your fathers' faces there by Troy's beloved wall!

       Tydides, thou of Danaan folk the mightiest under shield,

       Why might I never lay me down upon the Ilian field,

       Why was my soul forbid release at thy most mighty hand,

       Where eager Hector stooped and lay before Achilles' wand,

       Where huge Sarpedon fell asleep, where Simoïs rolls along100

       The shields of men, and helms of men, and bodies of the strong?"

      Thus as he cried the whistling North fell on with sudden gale

       And drave the seas up toward the stars, and smote aback the sail;

       Then break the oars, the bows fall off, and beam on in the trough

       She lieth, and the sea comes on a mountain huge and rough.

       These hang upon the topmost wave, and those may well discern

       The sea's ground mid the gaping whirl: with sand the surges churn.

       Three keels the South wind cast away on hidden reefs that lie

       Midmost the sea, the Altars called by men of Italy,

       A huge back thrusting through the tide: three others from the deep110

       The East toward straits, and swallowing sands did miserably sweep,

       And dashed them on the shoals, and heaped the sand around in ring:

       And one, a keel the Lycians manned, with him, the trusty King

       Orontes, in Æneas' sight a toppling wave o'erhung,

       And smote the poop, and headlong rolled, adown the helmsman flung;

       Then thrice about the driving flood hath hurled her as she lay,

       The hurrying eddy swept above and swallowed her from day:

       And lo! things swimming here and there, scant in the unmeasured seas,

       The arms of men, and painted boards, and Trojan treasuries.

       And now Ilioneus' stout ship, her that Achates leal120

       And Abas ferried o'er the main, and old Aletes' keel

       The storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream

       Through opening leaky sides of them that gape at every seam.

      But meanwhile Neptune, sorely moved, hath felt the storm let go,

       And all the turmoil of the main with murmur great enow;

       The deep upheaved from all abodes the lowest that there be:

       So forth he put his placid face o'er topmost of the sea,

       And there he saw Æneas' ships o'er all the main besprent,

       The Trojans beaten by the flood and ruin from heaven sent.

       But Juno's guile and wrathful heart her brother knew full well:130

       So East and West he called to him, and spake such words to tell:

      "What