Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

  1. Now was the promised day at hand (for Fate
  2. had woven the web so far) when Turnus' rage
  3. stirred the divine progenitress to save
  4. her sacred ships from fire. Then sudden shone
  5. a strange effulgence in the eastern air;
  6. and in a storm-cloud wafted o'er the sky
  7. were Corybantic choirs, whose dreadful song
  8. smote both on Teucrian and Rutulian ear:
  9. “O Teucrians, fear not for the sure defence
  10. of all the ships, nor arm your mortal hands.
  11. Yon impious Turnus shall burn up the seas
  12. before my pine-trees blest. Arise! Be free,
  13. ye goddesses of ocean, and obey
  14. your mother's mighty word.” Then instant broke
  15. the hawsers of the sterns; the beaked prows
  16. went plunging like great dolphins from the shore
  17. down to the deeps, and, wonderful to tell,
  18. the forms of virgin goddesses uprose,
  19. one for each ship, and seaward sped away.