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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book III Chapter 21: Arrival in Italy | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Scarce had Aurora's purple from the sky warned off the stars, when lying very low along th' horizon, the dimmed hills we saw of Italy; Achates first gave cry “ Italia!” with answering shouts of joy, my comrades' voices cried, “Italia, hail!” Anchises, then, wreathed a great bowl with flowers and filled with wine, invoking Heaven to bless, and thus he prayed from our ship's lofty stern: “O lords of land and sea and every storm! Breathe favoring breezes for our onward way!” Fresh blew the prayed-for winds. A haven fair soon widened near us; and its heights were crowned by a Greek fane to Pallas. Yet my men furled sail and shoreward veered the pointing prow. the port receding from the orient wave is curved into a bow; on either side the jutting headlands toss the salt sea-foam and hide the bay itself. Like double wall the towered crags send down protecting arms, while distant from the shore the temple stands. Here on a green sward, the first omen given, I [Note 1] saw four horses grazing through the field, each white as snow. Father Anchises cried: “Is war thy gift, O new and alien land? Horses make war; of war these creatures bode. Yet oft before the chariot of peace their swift hoofs go, and on their necks they bear th' obedient yoke and rein. Therefore a hope of peace is also ours.” Then we implored Minerva's mercy, at her sacred shrine, the mail-clad goddess who gave welcome there; and at an altar, mantling well our brows the Phrygia way, as Helenus ordained, we paid the honors his chief counsel urged, with blameless rite, to Juno, Argive Queen. Note 1: I = Aeneas Event: The wanderings of Aeneas |
521-547 Iamque rubescebat stellis Aurora fugatis cum procul obscuros collis humilemque uidemus Italiam. Italiam primus conclamat Achates, Italiam laeto socii clamore salutant tum pater Anchises magnum cratera corona induit impleuitque mero, diuosque uocauit stans celsa in puppi: 'di maris et terrae tempestatumque potentes, ferte uiam uento facilem et spirate secundi.' crebrescunt optatae aurae portusque patescit iam propior, templumque apparet in arce Mineruae; uela legunt socii et proras ad litora torquent. portus ab euroo fluctu curuatus in arcum, obiectae salsa spumant aspergine cautes, ipse latet: gemino demittunt bracchia muro turriti scopuli refugitque ab litore templum. quattuor hic, primum omen, equos in gramine uidi tondentis campum late, candore niuali. et pater Anchises 'bellum, o terra hospita, portas: bello armantur equi, bellum haec armenta minantur. sed tamen idem olim curru succedere sueti quadripedes et frena iugo concordia ferre: spes et pacis' ait. tum numina sancta precamur Palladis armisonae, quae prima accepit ouantis, et capita ante aras Phrygio uelamur amictu, praeceptisque Heleni, dederat quae maxima, rite Iunoni Argiuae iussos adolemus honores. |