my father, musing o'er the tales of ancient men,
Saith: 'Hearken, lords, and this your hope a little learn of me!
There is an isle of mightiest Jove called Crete amid the sea;
An hundred cities great it hath, that most abundant place;
And there the hill of Ida is, and cradle of our race.
Thence Teucer our first father came, if right the tale they tell,
When borne to those Rhœtean shores he chose a place to dwell
A very king: no Ilium was, no Pergamus rose high;
He and his folk abode as then in dales that lowly lie:110
Thence came Earth-mother Cybele and Corybantian brass,
And Ida's thicket; thence the hush all hallowed came to pass,
And thence the lions yoked and tame, the Lady's chariot drag.
On then! and led by God's command for nothing let us lag!
Please we the winds, and let our course for Gnosian land be laid;
Nor long the way shall be for us: with Jupiter to aid,
The third-born sun shall stay our ships upon the Cretan shore.'
So saying, all the offerings due he to the altar bore,
A bull to Neptune, and a bull to thee, Apollo bright,
A black ewe to the Storm of sea, to Zephyr kind a white.120
Fame went that Duke Idomeneus, thrust from his fathers' land,
Had gone his ways, and desert now was all the Cretan strand,
That left all void of foes to us those habitations lie.
Ortygia's haven then we leave, and o'er the sea we fly
By Naxos of the Bacchus ridge, Donusa's green-hued steep,
And Olearon, and Paros white, and scattered o'er the deep
All Cyclades; we skim the straits besprent with many a folk;
And diverse clamour mid the ships seafarers striving woke;
Each eggs his fellow; On for Crete, and sires of time agone!
And rising up upon our wake a fair wind followed on.130
And so at last we glide along the old Curetes' strand,
And straightway eager do I take the city wall in hand,
And call it Pergamea, and urge my folk that name who love,
For love of hearth and home to raise a burg their walls above.
And now the more part of the ships are hauled up high and dry,
To wedding and to work afield the folk fall presently,
And I give laws and portion steads; when suddenly there fell
From poisoned heaven a wasting plague, a wretched thing to tell,
On limbs of men, on trees and fields; and deadly was the year,
And men must leave dear life and die, or weary sick must bear140
Their bodies on: then Sirius fell to burn the acres dry;
The grass was parched, the harvest sick all victual did deny.
Then bids my father back once more o'er the twice-measured main,
To Phœbus and Ortygia's strand, some grace of prayer to gain:
What end to our outworn estate he giveth? whence will he
That we should seek us aid of toil; where turn to o'er the sea?
Night falleth, and all lives of earth doth sleep on bosom bear,
When lo, the holy images, the Phrygian House-gods there,
E'en them I bore away from Troy and heart of burning town,
Were present to the eyes of me in slumber laid adown,150
Clear shining in the plenteous light that over all was shed
By the great moon anigh her full through windows fashionèd.
Then thus they fall to speech with me, end of my care to make:
'The thing that in Ortygia erst the seer Apollo spake
Here telleth he, and to thy doors come we of his good will:
Thee and thine arms from Troy aflame fast have we followed still.
We 'neath thy care and in thy keel have climbed the swelling sea,
And we shall bear unto the stars thy sons that are to be,
And give thy city majesty: make ready mighty wall
For mighty men, nor toil of way leave thou, though long it fall.160
Shift hence abode; the Delian-born Apollo ne'er made sweet
These shores for thee, nor bade thee set thy city down in Crete:
There is a place, the Westland called of Greeks in days that are,
An ancient land, a fruitful soil, a mighty land of war;
Œnotrian folk first tilled the land, whose sons, as rumours run,
Now call it nought but Italy, from him who led them on.
This is our very due abode: thence Dardanus outbroke,
Iasius our father thence, beginner of our folk.
Come rise, and glad these tidings tell unto thy father old,
No doubtful tale: now Corythus, Ausonian field and fold170
Let him go seek, for Jupiter banneth Dictæan mead.'
All mazed was I with sight and voice of Gods; because indeed
This was not sleep, but face to face, as one a real thing sees.
I seemed to see their coifèd hair and very visages,
And over all my body too cold sweat of trembling flowed.
I tore my body from the bed, and, crying out aloud,
I stretched my upturned hands to heaven and unstained gifts I spilled
Upon the hearth, and joyfully that worship I fulfilled.
Anchises next I do to wit and all the thing unlock;
And he, he saw the twi-branched stem, twin fathers of our stock,180
And how by fault of yesterday through steads of old he strayed.
'O son, well learned in all the lore of Ilium's fate,' he said,
'Cassandra only of such hap would sing; I mind me well
Of like fate meted to our folk full oft would she foretell;
And oft would call to Italy and that Hesperian home.
But who believed that Teucrian folk on any day might come
Unto Hesperia's shores? or who might trow Cassandra then?
Yield we to Phœbus, follow we as better counselled men
The better part.'
We, full of joy, obey him with one mind;
From this seat too we fare away and leave a few behind;190
With sail abroad in hollow tree we skim the ocean o'er.
But when our keels the deep sea made, nor had we any more
The land in sight, but sea around, and sky around was spread,
A coal-blue cloud drew up to us that, hanging overhead,
Bore night and storm, and mirky gloom o'er all the waters cast:
Therewith the winds heap up the waves, the seas are rising fast
And huge; and through the mighty whirl scattered we toss about;
The storm-clouds wrap around the day, and wet mirk blotteth out