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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book IX Chapter 5: Aeneas' ships are changed into nymphs | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
Now was the promised day at hand (for Fate had woven the web so far) when Turnus' rage stirred the divine progenitress to save her [Note 1] sacred ships from fire. Then sudden shone a strange effulgence in the eastern air; and in a storm-cloud wafted o'er the sky were Corybantic choirs, whose dreadful song smote both on Teucrian and Rutulian ear: O Teucrians, fear not for the sure defence of all the ships, nor arm your mortal hands. Yon impious Turnus shall burn up the seas before my pine trees blest. Arise! Be free, ye goddesses of ocean, and obey your mother's mighty word. Then instant broke the hawsers of the sterns; the beaked prows went plunging like great dolphins from the shore down to the deeps, and, wonderful to tell, the forms of virgin goddesses uprose, one for each ship, and seaward sped away. Note 1: her = Cybele Events: Attack of Turnus on the Trojan camp, Aeneas' ships are changed into nymphs |
107-122 Ergo aderat promissa dies et tempora Parcae debita complerant, cum Turni iniuria Matrem admonuit ratibus sacris depellere taedas. hic primum noua lux oculis offulsit et ingens uisus ab Aurora caelum transcurrere nimbus Idaeique chori; tum uox horrenda per auras excidit et Troum Rutulorumque agmina complet: 'ne trepidate meas, Teucri, defendere nauis neue armate manus; maria ante exurere Turno quam sacras dabitur pinus. uos ite solutae, ite deae pelagi; genetrix iubet.' et sua quaeque continuo puppes abrumpunt uincula ripis delphinumque modo demersis aequora rostris ima petunt. hinc uirgineae (mirabile monstrum) reddunt se totidem facies pontoque feruntur. |