No More Learning

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. The sails drop; we swing back to the
oars; without delay the sailors strongly toss up the foam, and sweep
through the green water. The shores of the Strophades first receive me
thus won from the waves, Strophades the Greek name they bear, islands
lying in the great Ionian sea, which boding Celaeno and the other
Harpies inhabit since Phineus' house was shut on them, and they fled in
terror from the board of old. Than these no deadlier portent nor any
fiercer plague of divine wrath hath issued from the Stygian waters;
winged things with maidens' countenance, bellies dropping filth, and
clawed hands and faces ever wan with hunger. . . .

'When borne hitherward we enter the haven, lo! we see goodly herds of
oxen scattered on the plains, and goats flocking untended over the
grass. We attack them with the sword, and call the gods and Jove himself
to share our [223-258]spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore
and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us,
swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud
clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch,
spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep
recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland,
we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind
ambush in diverse quarters of the sky, the noisy crowd flutter with
clawed feet around their prey, defiling the feast with their lips.
Then
I bid my comrades take up arms, and proclaim war on the accursed race.
Even as I bade they do, range their swords in cover among the grass, and
hide their shields out of sight. So when they swooped clamorously down
along the winding shore, Misenus from his watch-tower on high signals on
the hollow brass; my comrades rush in and essay the strange battle, to
set the stain of steel on the winged horrors of the sea. But they take
no violence on their plumage, nor wounds on their bodies; and soaring
into the firmament with rapid flight, leave their foul traces on the
spoil they had half consumed. Celaeno alone, prophetess of ill, alights
on a towering cliff, and thus breaks forth in deep accents:

'"War is it for your slaughtered oxen and steers cut down, O children of
Laomedon, war is it you would declare, and drive the guiltless Harpies
from their ancestral kingdom? Take then to heart and fix fast these
words of mine; which the Lord omnipotent foretold to Phoebus, Phoebus
Apollo to me, I eldest born of the Furies reveal to you. Italy is your
goal; wooing the winds you shall go to Italy, and enter her harbours
unhindered. Yet shall you not wall round your ordained city, ere this
murderous outrage on us compel you, in portentous hunger, to eat your
tables with gnawing teeth. "

'She spoke, and winged her way back to the shelter of [259-293]the
wood. But my comrades' blood froze chill with sudden affright; their
spirits fell; and no longer with arms, nay with vows and prayers they
bid me entreat favour, whether these be goddesses, or winged things
ill-ominous and foul. And lord Anchises from the beach calls with
outspread hands on the mighty gods, ordering fit sacrifices: "Gods,
avert their menaces! Gods, turn this woe away, and graciously save the
righteous! " Then he bids pluck the cable from the shore and shake loose
the sheets. Southern winds stretch the sails; we scud over the
foam-flecked waters, whither wind and pilot called our course. Now
wooded Zacynthos appears amid the waves, and Dulichium and Same and
Neritos' sheer rocks. We fly past the cliffs of Ithaca, Laertes' realm,
and curse the land, fostress of cruel Ulysses.