Relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers
such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy
gust: be birth on our hills their avail.
such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy
gust: be birth on our hills their avail.
Virgil - Aeneid
' he
cries; and sends a javelin spinning into the air to open battle, and
advances towering on the plain. His comrades take up the cry, and follow
with dreadful din, wondering at the Teucrians' coward hearts, that they
issue not on even field nor face them in arms, but keep in shelter of
the camp. Hither and thither he rides furiously, tracing the walls, and
seeking entrance where way is none. And as a wolf prowling [59-92]about
some crowded sheepfold, when, beaten sore of winds and rains, he howls
at the pens by midnight; safe beneath their mothers the lambs keep
bleating on; he, savage and insatiate, rages in anger against the flock
he cannot reach, tired by the long-gathering madness for food, and the
throat unslaked with blood: even so the Rutulian, as he gazes on the
walled camp, kindles in anger, and indignation is hot in his iron frame.
By what means may he essay entrance? by what passage hurl the imprisoned
Trojans from the rampart and fling them on the plain? Close under the
flanking camp lay the fleet, fenced about with mounds and the waters of
the river; it he attacks, and calls for fire to his exultant comrades,
and eagerly catches a blazing pine-torch in his hand. Then indeed they
press on, quickened by Turnus' presence, and all the band arm them with
black faggots. The hearth-fires are plundered; the smoky brand trails a
resinous glare, and the Fire-god sends clouds of glowing ashes upward.
What god, O Muses, guarded the Trojans from the rage of the fire? who
repelled the fierce flame from their ships? Tell it; ancient is the
assurance thereof, but the fame everlasting. What time Aeneas began to
shape his fleet on Phrygian Ida, and prepared to seek the high seas, the
Berecyntian, they say, the very Mother of gods, spoke to high Jove in
these words: 'Grant, O son, to my prayer, what her dearness claims who
bore thee and laid Olympus under thy feet. My pine forest beloved of me
these many years, my grove was on the mountain's crown, whither men bore
my holy things, dim with dusky pine and pillared maples. These, when he
required a fleet, I gave gladly to the Dardanian; now fear wrings me
with sharp distress.
Relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers
such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy
gust: be birth on our hills their avail. '
[93-126]Thus her son in answer, who wheels the starry worlds: 'O
mother, whither callest thou fate? or what dost thou seek for these of
thine? May hulls have the right of immortality that were fashioned by
mortal hand? and may Aeneas traverse perils secure in insecurity? To
what god is power so great given? Nay, but when, their duty done, they
shall lie at last in their Ausonian haven, from all that have outgone
the waves and borne their Dardanian captain to the fields of Laurentum,
will I take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty
deep, even as Doto the Nereid and Galatea, when they cut the sea that
falls away from their breasts in foam. ' He ended; and by his brother's
Stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he
nodded confirmation, and shook all Olympus with his nod.
So the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due
time, when Turnus' injury stirred the Mother to ward the brands from her
holy ships. First then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great
glory from the Dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of Ida;
then an awful voice fell through air, filling the Trojan and Rutulian
ranks: 'Disquiet not yourselves, O Teucrians, to guard ships of mine,
neither arm your hands: sooner shall Turnus burn the seas than these
holy pines. You, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the Mother bids it. '
And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping
prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O
wonderful and strange! ) they rise with maidens' faces in like number,
and bear out to sea.
The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his
disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur,
and recoils from sea. But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence;
nay, he [127-158]raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them:
'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft
them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire.
So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in
flight; they have lost half their world.
cries; and sends a javelin spinning into the air to open battle, and
advances towering on the plain. His comrades take up the cry, and follow
with dreadful din, wondering at the Teucrians' coward hearts, that they
issue not on even field nor face them in arms, but keep in shelter of
the camp. Hither and thither he rides furiously, tracing the walls, and
seeking entrance where way is none. And as a wolf prowling [59-92]about
some crowded sheepfold, when, beaten sore of winds and rains, he howls
at the pens by midnight; safe beneath their mothers the lambs keep
bleating on; he, savage and insatiate, rages in anger against the flock
he cannot reach, tired by the long-gathering madness for food, and the
throat unslaked with blood: even so the Rutulian, as he gazes on the
walled camp, kindles in anger, and indignation is hot in his iron frame.
By what means may he essay entrance? by what passage hurl the imprisoned
Trojans from the rampart and fling them on the plain? Close under the
flanking camp lay the fleet, fenced about with mounds and the waters of
the river; it he attacks, and calls for fire to his exultant comrades,
and eagerly catches a blazing pine-torch in his hand. Then indeed they
press on, quickened by Turnus' presence, and all the band arm them with
black faggots. The hearth-fires are plundered; the smoky brand trails a
resinous glare, and the Fire-god sends clouds of glowing ashes upward.
What god, O Muses, guarded the Trojans from the rage of the fire? who
repelled the fierce flame from their ships? Tell it; ancient is the
assurance thereof, but the fame everlasting. What time Aeneas began to
shape his fleet on Phrygian Ida, and prepared to seek the high seas, the
Berecyntian, they say, the very Mother of gods, spoke to high Jove in
these words: 'Grant, O son, to my prayer, what her dearness claims who
bore thee and laid Olympus under thy feet. My pine forest beloved of me
these many years, my grove was on the mountain's crown, whither men bore
my holy things, dim with dusky pine and pillared maples. These, when he
required a fleet, I gave gladly to the Dardanian; now fear wrings me
with sharp distress.
Relieve my terrors, and grant a mother's prayers
such power that they may yield to no stress of voyaging or of stormy
gust: be birth on our hills their avail. '
[93-126]Thus her son in answer, who wheels the starry worlds: 'O
mother, whither callest thou fate? or what dost thou seek for these of
thine? May hulls have the right of immortality that were fashioned by
mortal hand? and may Aeneas traverse perils secure in insecurity? To
what god is power so great given? Nay, but when, their duty done, they
shall lie at last in their Ausonian haven, from all that have outgone
the waves and borne their Dardanian captain to the fields of Laurentum,
will I take their mortal body, and bid them be goddesses of the mighty
deep, even as Doto the Nereid and Galatea, when they cut the sea that
falls away from their breasts in foam. ' He ended; and by his brother's
Stygian streams, by the banks of the pitchy black-boiling chasm he
nodded confirmation, and shook all Olympus with his nod.
So the promised day was come, and the destinies had fulfilled their due
time, when Turnus' injury stirred the Mother to ward the brands from her
holy ships. First then a strange light flashed on all eyes, and a great
glory from the Dawn seemed to dart over the sky, with the choirs of Ida;
then an awful voice fell through air, filling the Trojan and Rutulian
ranks: 'Disquiet not yourselves, O Teucrians, to guard ships of mine,
neither arm your hands: sooner shall Turnus burn the seas than these
holy pines. You, go free; go, goddesses of the sea; the Mother bids it. '
And immediately each ship breaks the bond that held it, as with dipping
prows they plunge like dolphins deep into the water: from it again (O
wonderful and strange! ) they rise with maidens' faces in like number,
and bear out to sea.
The Rutulians stood dumb: Messapus himself is terror-stricken among his
disordered cavalry; even the stream of Tiber pauses with hoarse murmur,
and recoils from sea. But bold Turnus fails not a whit in confidence;
nay, he [127-158]raises their courage with words, nay, he chides them:
'On the Trojans are these portents aimed; Jupiter himself hath bereft
them of their wonted succour; nor do they abide Rutulian sword and fire.
So are the seas pathless for the Teucrians, nor is there any hope in
flight; they have lost half their world.
