The vision shook me, and the voice of the gods; (It was not a dream, exactly; I seemed to know them, Their features, the veiled hair, the living presence.) I woke in a sweat, held out my hands to heaven, And poured the pure libation for the altar, Then, gladly, to Anchises. He acknowledged His own mistake, a natural confusion, Our stock was double, of course; no need of saying We had more ancestors than one. ‘Cassandra,’ Anchises said, ‘alone, now I remember, Foretold this fate; it seemed she was always talking Of a land in the West, and Italian kingdoms, always. But who would ever have thought that any Trojans Would reach the shores in the West? Or, for that matter, Who ever believed Cassandra? Let us yield To the warning of Apollo, and at his bidding Seek better fortunes.’ So we obeyed him, Leaving this place, where a few stayed, and sailing The hollow keels over the mighty ocean. We were in deep water, and the land no longer Was visible, sky and ocean everywhere. A cloud, black-blue, loomed overhead, with night And tempest in it, and the water roughened In shadow; winds piled up the sea, the billows Rose higher; we were scattered in the surges. Clouds took away the daylight, and the night Was dark and wet in the sky, with lightning flashing. We wandered, off our course, in the dark of ocean, And our pilot, Palinurus, swore he could not Tell day from night, nor the way among the waters. For three lost days, three starless nights, we rode it, Saw land on the fourth, mountains and smoke arising. The sails came down, we bent to the oars; the sailors Made the foam fly, sweeping the dark blue water. I was saved from the waves; the Strophades received me, (The word means Turning-point in the Greek language), Ionian islands where the dire Celaeno And other Harpies live, since Phineus’ house Was closed to them, and they feared their former tables. No fiercer plague of the gods’ anger ever Rose out of hell, girls with the look of birds, Their bellies fouled, incontinent, their hands Like talons, and their faces pale with hunger. We sailed into the harbor, happy to see Good herds of cattle grazing over the grass And goats, unshepherded. We cut them down And made our prayer and offering to Jove, Set trestles on the curving shore for feasting. Down from the mountains with a fearful rush And a sound of wings like metal came the Harpies, To seize our banquet, smearing dirtiness Over it all, with a hideous kind of screaming And a stinking smell. We found a secret hollow Enclosed by trees, under a ledge of rock, Where shade played over; there we moved the tables And lit the fire again; the noisy Harpies Came out of somewhere, sky, or rock, and harried The feast again, the filthy talons grabbing,