Hither I sail and most peacefully the island welcomes our weary band in a safe haven. In mid-sea lies a holy land, most dear to the mother of the Nereids and Aegean Neptune, which, as it wandered round coasts and shores, the grateful archer god bound fast, to lofty Myconos and Gyaros, suffering it to lie unmoved, defying the winds. We put out from port, and lands and towns fade from view. “Then, as soon as we can trust the main, and the winds give us seas at peace, and the soft-whispering South calls to the deep, my comrades launch the ships and crowd the shores. We offer foaming bowls of warm milk and cups of victims’ blood, lay the spirit at rest in the tomb, and with loud voice give the last call.
So for Polydorus we solemnize fresh funeral rites, and earth is heaped high upon the mound altars are set up the dead, made mournful with somber rivers and black cypress and about them stand Ilian women, with hair streaming as custom ordains. All are of one mind, to quit the guilty land, to leave a place where hospitality is profaned, and to give our fleet the winds. To what crime do you not drive the hearts of men, accursed hunger for gold? When fear had fled my soul, I lay the divine portents before the chosen chiefs of the people, my father first, and ask what is their judgement. When the power of Troy was crushed and Fortune withdrew, the Thracian, following Agamemnon’s cause and triumphant arms, severs every sacred tie, slays Polydorus, and takes the gold perforce. “This Polydorus, with great weight of gold, luckless Priam had once sent in secret to be reared by the Thracian king, when he now lost hope in the arms of Dardania and saw the city beleaguered. Here an iron harvest of spears covered my pierced body, and grew up into sharp javelins.’ Then, indeed, with mind borne down with perplexing dread, I was appalled, my hair stood up, and the voice choked in my throat. Ah! flee the cruel land, flee the greedy shore! For I am Polydorus. ‘Woe is me! why, Aeneas, do you tear me? Spare me in the tomb at last spare the pollution of your pure hands! I, born of Troy, am no stranger to you not from a lifeless stock oozes this blood. But when with greater effort I assail the third shafts, and with my knees wrestle against the resisting sands – should I speak of be silent? – a piteous groan is heard from the depth of the mound, and an answering voice comes to my ears. Pondering much in heart, I prayed to woodland Nymphs, and father Gradivus, who rules over the Getic fields, duly to bless the vision and lighten the omen. Once more, from a second also I go on to pluck a tough shoot and probe deep the hidden cause from the bark of the second also follows black blood. A cold shudder shakes my limbs, and my chilled blood freezes with terror. For from the first tree which is torn from the ground with broken roots trickle drops of black blood and stain the earth with gore.
I drew near, and essaying to tear up the green growth from the soil, that I might deck the altar with leafy boughs, I see an awful portent, wondrous to tell. By chance, hard by there was a mound, on whose top were cornel bushes and myrtles bristling with crowded spear shafts. “I was offering sacrifice to my mother, daughter of Dione, and the other gods, that they might bless the work begun, and to the high king of the lords of heaven was slaying a shining white bull upon the shore. To it I sail and on the winding shore found my first city, entering on the task with untoward fates, and from my own name fashion the name Aeneadae. “At a distance lies the war god’s land, of widespread plains, tilled by Thracians, and once ruled by fierce Lycurgus friendly of old to Troy, with allied gods, in happier times. An exile, I fare forth upon the deep, with my comrades and son, my household gods and the great deities. Scarcely had the beginning of summer come when my father Anchises bade us spread sails to Fate, and then with tears I quit my native shores and harbours, and the plains, where once was Troy. Close to Antandros and the mountains of Phrygian Ida we build a fleet, uncertain whither the Fates lead or where it is granted us to settle and there we muster our men. “After it had pleased the gods above to overthrow the power of Asia and Priam’s guiltless race, after proud Ilium fell, and all Neptune’s Troy smokes from the ground, we are driven by heaven’s auguries to seek distant scenes of exile in waste lands. BOOKS 7 - 12 AENEID BOOK 3, TRANSLATED BY H.
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