Soon as the ships gained the mid-ocean, and no land met 10 the view any more—waters everywhere and everywhere skies—a dark rain-cloud arose and stood over the hero’s head, charged with night and winter tempest, and darkness ruffled the billow’s crest. Palinurus himself, the pilot, was heard from the lofty stern:—“Ah! why has such an 15 army of storms encompassed the heaven? What hast thou for us now, old Father Neptune?” No sooner said than he bids them gather up the tackle and ply the lusty oar, and shifts the sheet to the wind, and speaks thus:—“Noble Æneas, though Jove himself were to pledge me 20 his faith, I could not hope to reach Italy with a sky like this. The winds shift and storm crosswise, ever rising from the blackening West, and the mist is being massed into clouds. We cannot make head against them, or struggle as we should. Well, since Fortune exerts her 25 tyranny, let us follow, and turn our faces as she pulls the rein. I take it, too, we are not far from the friendly brother-coast of your Eryx, and the havens of Sicania, if my memory serves me as I retrace the stars I watched long ago.” To him good Æneas:—“I have seen myself 30 this long time that such is the winds’ will, and all your counter-efforts vain. Turn sail and ship. Could any land indeed be welcomer, any that I would sooner choose to harbour my weary ships, than the land which keeps for me above ground the Darden Acestes, and laps in its breast 5 the bones of my sire Anchises?” This said, they make for the haven; favouring zephyrs swell their sail, the fleet rides swiftly over the flood, and at last they touch with joy the strand they know so well. From a hill’s tall top Acestes had marked with wonder 10 afar off the new arrival, and the friendly vessels; up he runs, all in the savage trim of hunting-spear and Libyan bearskin—Acestes, son of a Trojan mother by the river Crimisus. The ancestral blood quickens in his veins as he gives them joy of their safe arrival, welcomes them 15 with the plenty of rustic royalty, and soothes their weariness with every kind appliance.