Aeneas (Legendary character) -- Poetry; Epic poetry, Latin -- Translations into English
As the cry leaves his lips, a gust of the shrill north strikes full on
the sail and raises the waves up to heaven. The oars are snapped; the
prow swings away and gives her side to the waves; down in a heap comes a
broken mountain of water. These hang on the wave's ridge; to these the
yawning billow shows ground amid the surge, where the sea churns with
sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks,
rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking
the sea. Three the east forces from the deep into shallows and
quicksands, piteous to see, dashes on shoals and girdles with a
sandbank. One, wherein loyal Orontes and his Lycians rode, before their
lord's eyes a vast sea descending strikes astern. The helmsman is dashed
away and rolled forward headlong; her as she lies the billow sends
spinning thrice round with it, and engulfs in the swift whirl. Scattered
swimmers appear in the vast eddy, armour of men, timbers and Trojan
treasure amid the water. Ere now the stout ship of Ilioneus, ere now of
brave Achates, and she wherein [121-152]Abas rode, and she wherein aged
Aletes, have yielded to the storm; through the shaken fastenings of
their sides they all draw in the deadly water, and their opening seams
give way.
Meanwhile Neptune discerned with astonishment the loud roaring of the
vexed sea, the tempest let loose from prison, and the still water
boiling up from its depths, and lifting his head calm above the waves,
looked forth across the deep. He sees all ocean strewn with Aeneas'
fleet, the Trojans overwhelmed by the waves and the ruining heaven.
Juno's guile and wrath lay clear to her brother's eye; east wind and
west he calls before him, and thereon speaks thus:
'Stand you then so sure in your confidence of birth? Careless, O winds,
of my deity, dare you confound sky and earth, and raise so huge a coil?
you whom I--But better to still the aroused waves; for a second sin you
shall pay me another penalty. Speed your flight, and say this to your
king: not to him but to me was allotted the stern trident of ocean
empire. His fastness is on the monstrous rocks where thou and thine,
east wind, dwell: there let Aeolus glory in his palace and reign over
the barred prison of his winds.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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