to welcome us in the hour of our joy; and, according to Helenus’ order, that order which he gave so earnestly, we 35 duly solemnize to Juno of Argos the prescribed honours. Then, without dallying, soon as our vows were paid in course, we turn landward the horns of our covered sail-yards, and leave the homes of the sons of Greece, and the fields we could not trust. Next we sight the bay of Tarentum, the city, if legend say true, of Hercules; right against us rises the goddess of Lacinium, and the towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum, wrecker of ships. Then, in 5 the distance, from the surge is seen Trinacrian Ætna; and the heavy groaning of the sea and the beating of the rocks is heard from afar, and broken voices on the beach, and the depths leap up to sight, and the sands are in a turmoil with the surge. Then, my father, Anchises: ‘No 10 doubt this is that Charybdis; these the cliffs, these the frightful rocks of Helenus’ song. Snatch us from them, comrades; rise on your oars as one man.’ They do no less than bidden; first of all Palinurus turned the plashing prow to the waters on the left; for the left makes the 15 whole fleet, oars, winds, and all. Up we go to heaven on the arched back of the wave; down again, as the water gives way under us, we sink to the place of death below. Thrice the rocks shouted in our ears deep in their stony hollows; twice we saw the foam dashed up, and the stars 20 all dripping. Meanwhile, tired and spent, we lose wind and sunlight at once, and, in our ignorance of the way, float to the land of the Cyclops. “There is a haven, sheltered from the approach of the winds, and spacious, were that all; but Ætna is near, 25 thundering with appalling crashes; at one time it hurls to the sky a black cloud, a smoky whirlwind of soot and glowing ashes, and upheaves balls of fire, and licks the stars; at another it raises rocks, torn from the mountain’s bowels, and whirls heaps of molten stones into the air 30 with a groan, and boils up from its very foundations. The legend is, that the body of Enceladus,[167] blasted by lightning, is kept down by this mighty weight, and that the giant bulk of Ætna, piled on him, breathes forth penal fire through passages which that fire has burst; and ever, 35 as he shifts his side from weariness, all Trinacria quakes and groans, and draws up a curtain of smoke over the sky. That night, in the shelter of the woods, we endure the visitation of monstrous portents, yet see not what cause produces the sound. For there was no starlight, no sky, bright with a heaven of constellations, but the firmament was dim and murky, and dead night was keeping the moon in a prison of storm-clouds. 5