The
sacrifice
done, I joyfully tell
Anchises, and relate all in order.
Anchises, and relate all in order.
Virgil - Aeneid
So I set eagerly to work on the walls of my chosen town,
and call it Pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to
cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. And even now the
ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages
and among their new fields; I was giving statutes and homesteads; when
suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and
pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. They left
their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; Sirius scorched
the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest
denied sustenance. My father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again
to Phoebus in his Ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue
he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to
our woes, whither bend our course.
'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred
images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had
borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to
stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light
where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus
addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo
hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters
here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and
thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have
traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to
heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou
prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long
wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did
the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete.
There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms
and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that
a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is
our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the
first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine
aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia.
Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields. "
'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber;
but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and
gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I
spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay
pure offering on the hearth.
The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell
Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and
twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among
ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of
Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she
prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia,
often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should
come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy?
Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better [189-222]way he counsels. "
So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling
likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and
run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.
'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky
all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead
carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed.
Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are
tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and
rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon
fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves.
Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky,
nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind
darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till
the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills
and sending up wreaths of smoke.
and call it Pergamea, and exhort my people, joyful at the name, to
cherish their homes and rear the castle buildings. And even now the
ships were drawn up on the dry beach; the people were busy in marriages
and among their new fields; I was giving statutes and homesteads; when
suddenly from a tainted space of sky came, noisome on men's bodies and
pitiable on trees and crops, pestilence and a year of death. They left
their sweet lives or dragged themselves on in misery; Sirius scorched
the fields into barrenness; the herbage grew dry, and the sickly harvest
denied sustenance. My father counsels to remeasure the sea and go again
to Phoebus in his Ortygian oracle, to pray for grace and ask what issue
he ordains to our exhausted state; whence he bids us search for aid to
our woes, whither bend our course.
'Night fell, and sleep held all things living on the earth. The sacred
images of the gods and the household deities of Phrygia, that I had
borne with me from Troy out of the midst of the burning city, seemed to
stand before mine eyes as I lay sleepless, clear in the broad light
where the full moon poured through the latticed windows; then thus
addressed me, and with this speech allayed my distresses: "What Apollo
hath to tell thee when thou dost [155-188]reach Ortygia, he utters
here, and sends us unsought to thy threshold. We who followed thee and
thine arms when Dardania went down in fire; we who under thee have
traversed on shipboard the swelling sea; we in like wise will exalt to
heaven thy children to be, and give empire to their city. Do thou
prepare a mighty town for a mighty people, nor draw back from the long
wearisome chase. Thou must change thy dwelling. Not to these shores did
the god at Delos counsel thee, or Apollo bid thee find rest in Crete.
There is a region Greeks name Hesperia, an ancient land, mighty in arms
and foison of the clod; Oenotrian men dwell therein; now rumour is that
a younger race have called it Italy after their captain's name. This is
our true dwelling place; hence is Dardanus sprung, and lord Iasius, the
first source of our race. Up, arise, and tell with good cheer to thine
aged parent this plain tale, to seek Corythus and the lands of Ausonia.
Jupiter denies thee the Dictaean fields. "
'Astonished at this vision and divine utterance (nor was that slumber;
but openly I seemed to know their countenances, their veiled hair and
gracious faces, and therewith a cold sweat broke out all over me) I
spring from my bed and raise my voice and upturned hands skyward and pay
pure offering on the hearth.
The sacrifice done, I joyfully tell
Anchises, and relate all in order. He recognises the double descent and
twofold parentage, and the later wanderings that had deceived him among
ancient lands. Then he speaks: "O son, hard wrought by the destinies of
Ilium, Cassandra only foretold me this fortune. Now I recall how she
prophesied this was fated to our race, and often cried of Hesperia,
often of an Italian realm. But who was to believe that Teucrians should
come to Hesperian shores? or whom might Cassandra then move by prophecy?
Yield we to Phoebus, and follow the better [189-222]way he counsels. "
So says he, and we all rejoicingly obey his speech. This dwelling
likewise we abandon; and leaving some few behind, spread our sails and
run over the waste sea in our hollow wood.
'After our ships held the high seas, nor any land yet appears, the sky
all round us and all round us the deep, a dusky shower drew up overhead
carrying night and tempest, and the wave shuddered and gloomed.
Straightway the winds upturn the main, and great seas rise; we are
tossed asunder over the dreary gulf. Stormclouds enwrap the day, and
rainy gloom blots out the sky; out of the clouds bursts fire fast upon
fire. Driven from our course, we go wandering on the blind waves.
Palinurus himself professes he cannot tell day from night on the sky,
nor remember the way amid the waters. Three dubious days of blind
darkness we wander on the deep, as many nights without a star. Not till
the fourth day was land at last seen to rise, discovering distant hills
and sending up wreaths of smoke.
