“Nor am I to be blamed, if Vulcan's isleof Lemnos has become the residenceof Philoctetes. Greeks, defend yourselves,for you agreed to it! Yes, I admitI urged him to withdraw from toils of warand those of travel and attempt by restto ease his cruel pain. He took my adviceand lives! The advice was not alone well meant(that would have been enough) but it was wise.Because our prophets have declared, he mustlead us, if we may still maintain our hopefor Troy's destruction—therefore, you must notintrust that work to me. Much better, sendthe son of Telamon. His eloquencewill overcome the hero's rage, most fiercefrom his disease and anger: or else hisinvention of some wile will skilfullydeliver him to us.—The Simoiswill first flow backward, Ida stand withoutits foliage, and Achaia promise aidto Troy itself; ere, lacking aid from me,the craft of stupid Ajax will avail.“Though, Philoctetes, you should be enragedagainst your friends, against the king and me;although you curse and everlastinglydevote my head to harm; although you wish,to ease your anguish, that I may be giveninto your power, that you may shed my blood;and though you wait your turn and chance at me;still I will undertake the quest and willtry all my skill to bring you back with me.If my good fortune then will favor me,I shall obtain your arrows; as I madethe Trojan seer my captive, as I learnedthe heavenly oracles and fate of Troy,and as I brought back through a host of foesMinerva's image from the citadel.“And is it possible, Ajax may nowcompare himself with me? Truly the Fateswill hold Troy from our capture, if we leavethe statue. Where is valiant Ajax now,where are the boasts of that tremendous man?Why are you trembling, while Ulysses daresto go beyond our guards and brave the night?In spite of hostile swords, he goes withinnot only the strong walls of Troy but eventhe citadel, lifts up the goddess fromher shrine, and takes her through the enemy!If I had not done this, Telamon's sonwould bear his shield of seven bull hides in vain.That night I gained the victory over Troy—'Twas then I won our war with Pergama,because I made it possible to win.“Stop hinting by your look and muttered wordsthat Diomed was my partner in the deed.The praise he won is his. You, certainlyfought not alone, when you held up your shieldto save the allied fleet: a multitudewas with you, but a single man gave mehis valued help.“And if he did not knowa fighting man can not gain victoryso surely as the wise man, that the prizeis given to something rarer than a brave right hand,he would himself be a contender nowfor these illustrious arms. Ajax the lesswould have come forward too, so would the fierceEurypylus, so would Andraemon's son.Nor would Idomeneus withhold his claim,nor would his countryman Meriones.Yes, Menelaus too would seek the prize.All these brave men, my equals in the field,have yielded to my wisdom.“Your right handis valuable in war, your temper standsin need of my direction. You have strengthwithout intelligence; I look out forthe future. You are able in the fight;I help our king to find the proper time.Your body may give service, and my mindmust point the way: and just as much as hewho guides the ship must be superiorto him who rows it; and we all agreethe general is greater than the soldier; so,do I excel you. In the body livesan intellect much rarer than a hand,by that we measure human excellence.“O chieftains, recompense my vigilance!For all these years of anxious care, awardthis honor to my many services.Our victory is in sight; I have removedthe opposing fates and, opening wide the wayto capture Pergama, have captured it.Now by our common hopes, by Troy's high wallsalready tottering and about to fall,and by the gods that I won from the foe,by what remains for wisdom to deviseor what may call for bold and fearless deeds—if you think any hope is left for Troy,remember me! Or, if you do not givethese arms to me, then give them all to her!”And he pointed to Minerva's fateful head.The assembled body of the chiefs was moved;and then, appeared the power of eloquence:the fluent man received, amid applause,the arms of the brave man. His rival, whoso often when alone, stood firm againstgreat Hector and the sword, and flames and Jove,stood not against a single passion, wrath.The unconquerable was conquered by his grief.He drew his sword, and said:—“This is at leastmy own; or will Ulysses also claimthis, for himself. I must use this againstmyself—the blade which often has been wet,dripping with blood of Phrygians I have slain,.Will drip with his own master's:blood,lest any man but Ajax vanquish Ajax.”Saying this, he turned toward the vital spotin his own breast, which never had felt a wound,the fated sword and plunged it deeply in. though many sought to aid, no hand had strengthto draw that steel—deep driven. The blood itselfunaided drove it out. The ensanguined earthsprouted from her green turf that purple flowerwhich grew of old from Hyacinthine blood.Its petals now are charged with double freight—the warrior's name, Apollo's cry of woe.

The conqueror, Ulysses, now set sail,for Lemnos, country of Hypsipyle,and for the land of Thoas, famed afar,those regions infamous in olden days,where women slew their husbands. So he wentthat he might capture and bring back with himthe arrows of brave Hercules. When thesewere given back to the Greeks, their lord with them,a final hand at last prevailed to endthat long fought war. Both Troy and Priam fell,and Priam's wretched wife lost all she had,until at last she lost her human form.Her savage barkings frightened foreign lands,where the long Hellespont is narrowed down.Great Troy was burning: while the fire still raged,Jove's altar drank old Priam's scanty blood.The priestess of Apollo then, alas!Was dragged by her long hair, while up towards heavenshe lifted supplicating hands in vain.The Trojan matrons, clinging while they couldto burning temples and ancestral gods,victorious Greeks drag off as welcome spoil.Astyanax was hurled down from the very towerfrom which he often had looked forth and seenhis father, by his mother pointed out,when Hector fought for honor and his country's weal.Now Boreas counsels to depart. The sails,moved by a prosperous breeze, resound and wave—the Trojan women cry,—“Farewell to Troy!Ah, we are hurried off! ” and, falling down,they kiss the soil, and leave the smoking roofsof their loved native land. The last to goon board the fleet was Hecuba, a sightmost pitiful. She was found among the tombsof her lost sons. While she embraced each urnand fondly kissed their bones, Ulysses camewith ruthless hands and bore her off, his prizeshe in her bosom took away the urnof Hector only, and upon his graveshe left some white hair taken from her head,a meager gift, her white hair and her tears.Across the strait from Troy, there is a landclaimed by Bistonian men, and in that landwas a rich palace, built there by a kingnamed Polymnestor. To him the Phrygian kingin secret gave his youngest son to rear,his Polydorus, safe from Troy and war,a prudent course, if he had not sent goldarousing greed, incitement to a crime.Soon, when the fortunes of the Trojans fell,that wicked king of Thrace took his own sword,and pierced the throat of his poor foster sonand then, as if the deed could be concealed,if he removed the body, hurled the boyfrom a wild cliff into the waves below.Until the sea might be more calm, and galesof wind might be subdued, Atrides mooredhis fleet of ships upon the Thracian shore;there, from wide gaping earth, Achilles rose,as large as when he lived, with look as fierce,as when his sword once threatened Agamemnon.“Forgetting me do you depart, O Greeks?”He said, “And is your grateful! memoryof all my worth interred with my bones?Do not do so. And that my sepulchremay have due worship, let Polyxenabe immolated to appease the ghost:of dead Achilles.” Fiercely so he spoke.The old friends of Achilles all obeyedhis unforgiving shade; and instantlythe noble and unhappy virgin—brave,more like a man than woman—was torn fromher mother's bosom, cherished more by her,since widowed and alone. And then they ledthe virgin as a sacrifice from thereup to the cruel altar. When the maidobserved the savage rites prepared for her,and when she noticed Neoptolemusstand by her with his cruel sword in hand,his fixed eyes on her countenance; she said:—“Do not delay my generous gift of blood,with no resistance thrust the ready steelinto my throat or breast!” And then she laidboth throat and bosom bare. “Polyxenawould never wish to live in slavery.And such rites win no favor from a god.Only I fondly wish my mother mightnot know that I have died. My love of hertakes from my joy in death and gives me fear.Not my death truly, but her own sad lifeshould be the most lamented in her tears.Now let your men stand back, that I may gowith dignity down to the Stygian shades,and, if my plea is just, let no man's handtouch my pure virgin body. A nobler giftto him, whoever he may be, whom youdesire to placate with my death today,shall be a free maid's blood. But, if my words—my parting wish, has power to touch your hearts,(King Priam's daughter, not a captive, pleads)freely return my body to my mother,let her not pay with gold for the sad rightto bury me—but only with her tears!Yes, when she could, she also paid with gold.”After she said these words, the people couldno more restrain their tears; but no one sawher shed one tear. Even the priest himself,reluctantly and weeping, drove the steelinto her proffered breast. On failing kneesshe sank down to the earth; but still maintaineda countenance undaunted to the last:and, even unto death, it was her careto cover all that ought to be concealed,and save the value of chaste modesty.The Trojan matrons took her and recalled,lamenting, all the sons of Priam dead,the wealth of blood one house had shed for all.And they bewailed the chaste Polyxenaand you, her mother, only lately calleda royal mother and a royal wife,—the soul of Asia's fair prosperity,;now lowest fallen in all the wreck of Troy.The conquering Ulysses only claimedher his because she had brought Hector forth:and Hector hardly found a master forhis mother. She continued to embracethe body of a soul so brave, and shedher tears, as she had shed them often beforefor country lost, for sons, for royal mate.She bathed her daughter's wounds with tears and kissedthem with her lips and once more beat her breast.Her white hair streamed down in the clotting blood,she tore her breast, and this and more she said:

“My daughter, what further sorrow can be mine?My daughter you lie dead, I see your wounds—they are indeed my own. Lest I should loseone child of mine without a cruel sword,you have your wound. I thought, becauseyou were a woman, you were safe from swords.But you, a woman, felt the deadly steel.That same Achilles, who has given to deathso many of your brothers, caused your death,the bane of Troy and the serpent by my nest!When Paris and when Phoebus with their shaftshad laid him low, ‘Ah, now at least,’ I said,‘Achilles will no longer cause me dread.’Yet even then he still was to be feared.For him I have been fertile! Mighty Troynow lies in ruin, and the public woeis ended in one vast calamity.For me alone the woe of Troy still lives.“But lately on the pinnacle of fame,surrounded by my powerful sons-in-law,daughters, and daughters-in-law, and strongin my great husband, I am exiled now,and destitute, and forced from the sad tombsof those I love, to wretched slavery,serving Penelope: who showing meto curious dames of Ithaca, will pointand say, while I am bending to my task,‘Look at that woman who was widely known,the mother of great Hector, once the wifeof Priam!’ After so many have been lost,now you, last comfort of a mother's grief,must make atonement on the foeman's tomb.I bore a victim for my enemy.“Why do I live—an iron witted wretch?Why do I linger? Why does cruel agedetain me? Why, pernicious deities,thus hold me to this earth, unless you willthat I may weep at future funerals?After the fall of Troy, who would supposeKing Priam could be happy? Blest in death,he has not seen my daughter's dreadful fate.He lost at once his kingdom and his life.“Can I imagine you, a royal maid,will soon be honored with due funeral rites,and will be buried in our family tomb?Such fortune comes no more to your sad house.A drift of foreign sand will be your grave,the parting gift will be your mother's tears.We have lost everything! But no, there isone reason why I should endure a while.His mother's dearest, now her only child,once youngest of that company of sons,my Polydorus lives here on these shoresprotected by the friendly Thracian king.Then why delay to bathe these cruel wounds,her dear face spattered with the dreadful blood?”So Hecuba went wailing towards the shorewith aged step and tearing her gray hair.At last the unhappy mother said, “Give mean urn; O, Trojan women!” for, she wishedto dip up salt sea water. But just then,she saw the corpse of her last son, thrown outupon the shore; her Polydorus, killed,disfigured with deep wounds of Thracian swords.The Trojan women cried aloud, and shewas struck dumb with her agony, which quiteconsumed both voice and tears within her heart—rigid and still she seemed as a hard rock.And now she gazes at the earth in frontnow lifts her haggard face up toward the skies,now scans that body lying stark and dead,now scans his wounds and most of all the wounds.She arms herself and draws up all her wrath.It burned as if she still held regal powershe gave up all life to the single thoughtof quick revenge. Just as a lionessrages when plundered of her suckling cuband follows on his trail the unseen foe,so, Hecuba with rage mixed in her griefforgetful of her years, not her intent,went hastily to Polymnestor, whocontrived this dreadful murder, and desiredan interview, pretending it was her wishto show him hidden gold, for her lost son.The Odrysian king believed it all:accustomed to the love of gain, he wentwith her, in secret, to the spot she chose.Then craftily he said in his bland way:“Oh, Hecuba, you need not wait, give now,munificently to your son—and allyou give, and all that you have given,by the good gods, I swear, shall be his own.”She eyed him sternly as he spokeand swore so falsely.—Then her rage boiled over,and, seconded by all her captive train,she flew at him and drove her fingers deepin his perfidious eyes; and tore them fromhis face—and plunged her hands into the rawand bleeding sockets (passion made her strong),defiled with his bad blood. How could she tearhis eyes, gone from their seats? She wildly gougedthe sightless sockets of his bleeding face!The Thracians, angered by such violence doneupon their king, immediately attackedthe Trojan matron with their stones and dartsbut she with hoarse growling and snapping jawssprang at the stones, and, when she tried to speak,she barked like a fierce dog. The place still bearsa name suggested by her hideous change.And she, long mindful! of her old time woe,ran howling dismally in Thracian fields.Her sad fate moved the Trojans and the Greeks,her friends and foes, and all the heavenly gods.Yes all, for even the sister-wife of Jovedenied that Hecuba deserved such fate.

Although Aurora had given aid to Troy,she had no heart nor leisure to be movedby fall of Troy or fate of Hecuba.At home she bore a greater grief and care;her loss of Memnon is afflicting her.Aurora, his rose-tinted mother, sawhim perish by Achilles' deadly spear,upon the Phrygian plain. She saw his death,and the loved rose that lights the dawning hourturned death-pale, and the sky was veiled in clouds.The parent could not bear to see his limbslaid on the final flames. Just as she was,with loose hair streaming round her, she did notdisdain to crouch down at the knees of Jove,and said these sad words added to her tears:“Beneath all those whom golden heaven sustains;(inferior, for see, through all the worldmy temples are so few) I have come nowa goddess, to you; not with any hopethat you may grant me temples, festivals,and altars, heated with devoted fires:but if you will consider the good deeds,which I, a woman, may yet do for you,when at the dawn I mark the edge of night;then you may think of some reward for me.But that is not my care; nor is it nowAurora's purpose here, that she should pleadfor honors, though deserved. I come bereaved,of my son Memnon, who in vain bore armsto aid his uncle and in prime of life(0, thus you willed it!) fell stricken by the swordof great Achilles. Give my son, I pray,O highest ruler of the gods, some honor,some comfort for his death, a little easehis mother's grief.” Jove nodded his assent.Immediately the high-wrought funeral-pileof Memnon fell down with its lofty fire,and volumes of black smoke obscured the day,as streams exhaling their dense rising fogs,exclude the bright sun from the land below.Black ashes fly and, rolling up a shape,retain a form and gather heat and lifeout of the fire. Their lightness gave them wings,first like a bird and then in fact a bird.The wings move whirring. In the neighboring airuncounted sisters, of one birth and growthtogether make one noise. Three times they flewaround the funeral pile; and thrice the soundaccordant of their fluttering wings went swiftupon the soft breeze. When they turned about,their fourth flight in the skies divided them.As two fierce races from two hostile camps,clash in their warfare, these bird-sisters withtheir beaks and crooked claws clashed, passionate,until their tired wings and opposing breastscould not sustain them. And those kindred-foesfell down a sacrifice, memorial,to Memnon's ashes buried in that place.Brave Memnon, author of their birth, has givenhis name to those birds, marvellously formed,—and from him they are called Memnonides.—now, always when the Sun has passed the twelvesigns of the Zodiac, they war again,to perish as a sacrifice for him.So others grieved, while Dymas' royal daughterwas barking: but Aurora overcomewith lasting sorrows, could not think of her:and even now, she sheds affectionate tears:and sprinkles them as dew on all the world.

The Fates did not allow the hope of Troyto be destroyed entirely with her walls.Aeneas, the heroic son of Venus,bore on his shoulders holy imagesand still another holy weight, his sire,a venerable burden. From all his wealththe pious hero chose this for his caretogether with his child, Ascanius.Then with a fleet of exiles he sails forth,he leaves Antandrus, leaves the wicked realmand shore of Thrace now dripping with the bloodof Polydorus. With fair winds and tidehe and his comrades reach Apollo's isle.Good Anius, king of Delos, vigilantfor all his subjects' welfare, and as priestdevoted to Apollo, took him thereinto his temple and his home, and showedthe city, the famed shrines, and the two treeswhich once Latona, while in labor, held.They burned sweet incense, adding to it wine,and laid the flesh of cattle in the flames,an offering marked by custom for the god.Then in the palace and its kingly hall,reclining on luxurious couches, theydrank flowing wine with Ceres' gifts of food.But old Anchises asked: “O chosen priestof Phoebus, can I be deceived? When firstI saw these walls, did you not have a son,and twice two daughters? Is it possibleI am mistaken?” Anius replied,—shaking his temples wreathed with fillets white,—“It can be no mistake, great hero, youdid see the father of five children then,(so much the risk of fortune may affectthe best of men). You see me now, almostbereft of all. For what assistance canmy absent son afford, while he is king,the ruler over Andros—that land namedfor his name—over which he rules for me?“The Delian god gave to my son the artof augury; and likewise, Liber gavemy daughters precious gifts exceeding allmy wishes and belief: since, every thingmy daughters touched assumed the forms of corn,of sparkling wine, or gray-green olive oil.Most surely, wonderful advantages.“Soon as Atrides, he who conquered Troyhad heard of this (for you should not supposethat we, too, did not suffer from your storms)he dragged my daughters there with savage force,from my loved bosom to his hostile camp,and ordered them to feed the Argive fleet,by their divinely given power of touch.“Whichever way they could, they made escapetwo hastened to Euboea, and two soughttheir brother's island, Andros. Quickly thenan Argive squadron, following, threatened war,unless they were surrendered. The brother's lovegave way to fear. And there is reason whyyou should forgive a timid brother's fear:he had no warrior like Aeneas, nonelike Hector, by whose prowess you held Troyfrom its destruction through ten years of war.“Strong chains were brought to hold my daughters' arms.Both lifted suppliant hands, which still were free,to heaven and cried, ‘0, Father Bacchus! giveus needed aid!’ And he who had beforegiven them the power of touch, did give them aid—if giving freedom without human shapecan be called giving aid.—I never knewby what means they lost shape, and cannot tell;but their calamity is surely known:my daughters were transformed to snow-white doves,white birds of Venus, guardian of your days.”With this and other talk they shared the feast,then left the table and retired to sleep.They rose up with the day, and went at onceto hear the oracle of Phoebus speak.He counselled them to leave that land and findtheir ancient mother and their kindred shores.The king attended them, and gave them giftswhen ready to depart; a sceptre toAnchises, and a robe and quiver tohis grandson, and he gave a goblet toAeneas, that which formerly was sentto him by Therses, once his Theban guest.Therses had sent it from Aonian shores;but Alcon the Hylean should be named,for he had made the goblet and inscribeda pictured story on the polished side.There was a city shown with seven gates,from which the name could be derived by all.Outside the walls was a sad funeral, and tombs and fires and funeral pyres were shown,and many matrons with dishevelled hairand naked breasts, expressive of their grief,and many nymphs too, weeping mournfullybecause their streams were dry. Without a leafthe bare trees stood straight up and the she goatswere nibbling in dry, stony fields. And there he carvedOrion's daughters in the Theban square,one giving her bare throat a cruel cut,one with her shuttle making clumsy wounds;both dying for their people. Next they were borneout through the city with doe funeral pomp,and mourning crowds were gathered round their pyre.Then from the virgin ashes, lest the raceshould die. twin youths arose, whom famehas named Coroni and they sharedin all the rites becoming for their mothers' dust.Even so in shining figures all was showninscribed on ancient bronze. The top rim, madequite rough, was gilded with acanthus leaves.Presents of equal worth the Trojans gave:a maple incense casket for the priest,a bowl, a crown adorned with gold and gems.

Then, recollecting how the Trojans hadderived their origin from Teucer's race,they sailed to Crete but there could not endureills sent by Jove, and, having left behindthe hundred cities, they desired to reachthe western harbors of the Ausonian land.Wintry seas then tossed the heroic band,and in a treacherous harbor of those isles,called Strophades, Aello frightened them.They passed Dulichium's port, and Ithaca,Samos, and all the homes of Neritos,—the kingdom of the shrewd deceitful man,Ulysses; and they reached Ambracia,contended for by those disputing gods;which is today renowned abroad, becauseof Actian Apollo, and the stoneseen there conspicuous as a transformed judge;they saw Dodona, vocal with its oaks;and also, the well known Chaonian bays,where sons of the Molossian king escapedwith wings attached, from unavailing flames.They set their sails then for the neighboring landof the Phaeacians, rich with luscious fruit:then for Epirus and to Buthrotos,and came then to a mimic town of Troy,ruled by the Phrygian seer. With prophecieswhich Helenus, the son of Priam, gave,they came to Sicily, whose three high capesjut outward in the sea. Of these three pointsPachynos faces towards the showery south;and Lilybaeum is exposed to softdelicious zephyrs; but Peloros looksout towards the Bears which never touch the sea.The Trojans came there. Favored by the tide,and active oars, by nightfall all the fleetarrived together on Zanclaean sands.Scylla upon the right infests the shore,Charybdis, restless on the left, destroys.Charybdis swallows and then vomits forthmisfortuned ships that she has taken down;Scylla's dark waist is girt with savage dogs.She has a maiden's face, and, if we may believewhat poets tell, she was in olden timea maiden. Many suitors courted her,but she repulsed them; and, because she wasso much beloved by all the Nereids,she sought these nymphs and used to tellhow she escaped from the love-stricken youths.But Galatea, while her loosened lockswere being combed, said to her visitor,—“Truly, O maiden, a gentle race of mencourts you, and so you can, and do, refuseall with impunity. But I, whose sireis Nereus, whom the azure Doris bore,though guarded by so many sister nymphs,escaped the Cyclops' love with tragic loss.”And, sobbing, she was choked with tears.When with her fingers, marble white and smooth,Scylla had wiped away the rising tearsof sorrow and had comforted the nymph,she said, “Tell me, dear goddess, and do notconceal from me (for I am true to you)the cause of your great sorrows.” And the nymph,daughter of Nereus, thus replied to her:—

“Acis, the son of Faunus and the nymphSymaethis, was a great delight to hisdear father and his mother, but even moreto me, for he alone had won my love.Eight birthdays having passed a second time,his tender cheeks were marked with softest down.“While I pursued him with a constant love,the Cyclops followed me as constantly.And, should you ask me, I could not declarewhether my hatred of him, or my loveof Acis was the stronger.—They were equal.“O gentle Venus! what power equals yours!That savage, dreaded by the forest trees,feared by the stranger who beholds his facecontemner of Olympus and the gods,now he can feel what love is. He is filledwith passion for me. He burns hot for me,forgetful of his cattle and his caves.“Now, Polyphemus, wretched Cyclops, youare careful of appearance, and you trythe art of pleasing. You have even combedyour stiffened hair with rakes: it pleases youto trim your shaggy beard with sickles, whileyou gaze at your fierce features in a poolso earnest to compose them. Love of flesh,ferocity and your keen thirst for bloodhave ceased. The ships may safely come and go!“While all this happened, Telemus arrivedat the Sicilian Aetna—Telemus,the son of Eurymus, who never couldmistake an omen, met the dreadful fierce,huge Cyclops, Polyphemus, and he said,‘That single eye now midmost in your browUlysses will take from you.’ In reply,the Cyclops only laughed at him and said,‘Most silly of the prophets! you are wrong,a maiden has already taken it!’So he made fun of Telemus, who warnedhim vainly of the truth—and after that,he either burdened with his bulk the shore,by stalking back and forth with lengthy strides,or came back weary to his shaded cave.“A wedge-formed hill projects far in the seaand either side there flow the salty waves.To this the giant savage climbed and satupon the highest point. The wooly flock,no longer guided by him, followed after.There, after he had laid his pine tree down,which served him for a staff, although so tallit seemed best fitted for a ship's high mast,he played his shepherd pipes—in them I sawa hundred reeds. The very mountains feltthe pipings of that shepherd, and the wavesbeneath him shook respondent to each note.All this time I was hidden by a rock,reclining on the bosom of my owndear Acis; and, although afar, I heardsuch words as these, which I can not forget:—‘O Galatea, fairer than the flowerof snow-white privet, and more blooming thanthe meadows, and more slender than the talldelightful alder, brighter than smooth glass,more wanton than the tender skipping kid,smoother than shells worn by continual floods,more pleasing than the winter sun, or thanthe summer shade, more beautiful than fruitof apple trees, more pleasing to the sightthan lofty plane tree, clearer than pure ice,and sweeter than the ripe grape, softer thansoft swan-down and the softest curdled milk;alas, and if you did not fly from me,I would declare you are more beautifulthan any watered garden of this world.‘And yet, O Galatea; I must say,that you are wilder than all untrained bullocks,harder than seasoned oak, more treacherousthan tumbled waters, tougher than the twigsof osier and the white vine, harder to movethan cliffs which front these waves, more violentthan any torrent, you are prouder thanthe flattered peacock, fiercer than hot fire,rougher than thistles, and more cruel thanthe pregnant she-bear, deafer than the wavesof stormy seas, more deadly savage thanthe trodden water-snake: and, (what I wouldendeavor surely to deprive you of)your speed is fleeter than the deerpursued by frightful barkings, and more swiftthan rapid storm-winds and the flitting air.‘But Galatea, if you knew me wellyou would regret your hasty flight from me,and you would even blame your own delay,and strive for my affection. I now holdthe choice part of this mountain for my cave,roofed over with the native rock. The sunis not felt in the heat of middle day,nor is the winter felt there: apples loadthe bending boughs and luscious grapeshang on the lengthened vines, resembling gold,and purple grapes as rich—I keep for youthose two delicious fruits. With your own hands,you shall yourself uncover strawberries,growing so soft beneath the woodland shade;you shall pluck corners in the autumn ripe,and plums, not only darkened with black juicebut larger kinds as yellow as new wax.If I may be your mate, you shall have chestnuts,fruits of the arbute shall be always near,and every tree shall yield at your desire.‘The ewes here all are mine, and many moreare wandering in the valleys; and the woodsconceal a multitude—and many moreare penned within my caves. If you perchanceshould ask me, I could never even guessor count the number; it is for the poorto count their cattle. Do not trust my word,but go yourself and see with your own eyes,how they can hardly stand up on their legsbecause of their distended udders' weight.‘I have lambs also, as a future flock,kept in warm folds, and kids of their same agein other folds. I always have suppliesof snow-white milk for drinking, and much moreis hardened with good rennet liquefied.‘The common joys of ordinary thingswill not be all you should expect of me—tame does and hares and she-goats or a pairof doves, or even a nest from a tall tree—for I have found upon a mountain top,the twin cubs of a shaggy wild she-bear,of such appearance you can hardly knowthe one from other. They will play with you.The very day I found them I declared,these I will keep for my dear loved one's joy.‘Do now but raise your shining head abovethe azure sea: come Galatea come,and do not scorn my presents. Certainly,I know myself, for only recentlyI saw my own reflection pictured clearin limpid water, and my features pleasedand charmed me when I saw it. See how hugeI am. Not even Jove in his high heavenis larger than my body: this I saybecause you tell me how imperial Jovesurpasses.—Who is he? I never knew.‘My long hair plentifully hangs to hideunpleasant features; as a grove of treesovershadowing my shoulders. Never thinkmy body is uncomely, although rough,thick set with wiry bristles. Every treewithout leaves is unseemly; every horse,unless a mane hangs on his tawny neck;feathers must cover birds; and their soft woolis ornamental on the best formed sheep:therefore a beard, and rough hair spread uponthe body is becoming to all men.I have but one eye centered perfectlywithin my forehead, so it seems most likea mighty buckler. Ha! does not the Sunsee everything from heaven? Yet it hasbut one eye.—‘Galatea, you must know,my father is chief ruler in your sea,and therefor I now offer him to youas your own father-in-law—But oh, do takesome pity on a suppliant,— and hear his prayer,for only unto you my heart is given.‘I, who despise the power of Jove, his heavensand piercing lightnings, am afraid of you—your wrath more fearful than the lightning's flash—but I should be more patient under slights,if you avoided all men: why rejectthe Cyclops for the love that Acis gives?And why prefer his smiles to my embraces,but let him please himself, and let him pleaseyou, Galatea, though against my will.‘If I am given an opportunityhe will be shown that I have every strengthproportioned to a body vast as mine:I will pull out his palpitating entrails,and scatter his torn limbs about the fieldsand over and throughout your salty waves;and then let him unite himself to you.—I burn so, and my slighted passion raveswith greater fury and I seem to holdand carry Aetna in my breast—transferredthere with its flames—Oh Galatea! canyou listen to my passion thus unmoved!’“I saw all this; and, after he in vainhad uttered such complaints, he stood up likea raging bull whose heifer has been lost,that cannot stand still, but must wander onthrough brush and forests, that he knows so well:when that fierce monster saw me and my Acis—we neither knew nor guessed our fate—he roared:‘I see you and you never will againparade your love before me!’ In such a voiceas matched his giant size. All Aetna shookand trembled at the noise; and I amazedwith horror, plunged into the adjoining sea.“My loved one, Acis turned his back and fledand cried out, ‘Help me Galatea, help!0, let your parents help me, and admitme safe within their realm; for I am nownear my destruction!’ But the Cyclops rushedat him and hurled a fragment, he had tornout from the mountain, and although the extremeedge only of the rock could reach him there.It buried him entirely.“Then I didthe only thing the Fates permitted me:I let my Acis take ancestral powerof river deities. The purple bloodflowed from beneath the rock, but soonthe sanguine richness faded and becameat first the color of a stream, disturbedand muddied by a shower. And presentlyit clarified.— The rock that had been thrownthen split in two, and through the cleft a reed,stately and vigorous, arose to life.And soon the hollow mouth in the great rock,resounded with the waters gushing forth.And wonderful to tell, a youth emerged,the water flowing clear about his waist,his new horns circled with entwining reeds,and the youth certainly was Acis, thoughhe was of larger stature and his faceand features all were azure. Acis changedinto a stream which ever since that timehas flowed there and retained its former name.

So Galatea, after she had toldher sorrow, ceased; and, when the companyhad gone from there, the Nereids swam againin the calm and quiet waves. But Scylla soonreturned (because she did not trust herselfin deep salt waters) and she wandered therenaked of garments on the thirsty sand;but, tired, by chance she found a lonely bay,and cooled her limbs with its enclosing waves.Then suddenly appeared a newly madeinhabitant of that deep sea, whose namewas Glaucus. Cleaving through the blue sea waves,he swam towards her. His shape had been transformedbut lately for this watery life, while hewas living at Anthedon in Euboea.—now he is lingering from desire for herhe saw there and speaks whatever wordshe thought might stop her as she fled from him.Yet still she fled from him, and swift through fear,climbed to a mountain top above the sea.Facing the waves, it rose in one huge peak,parting the waters with a forest crown.She stood on that high summit quite secure:and, doubtful whether he might be a godor monster, wondered at his flowing hairwhich covered his broad shoulders and his back,—and marvelled at the color of his skinand at his waist merged into a twisted fish.All this he noticed, and while leaning thereagainst a rock that stood near by, he said: —“I am no monster, maiden, I am nota savage beast; I am in truth a godof waters, with such power upon the seasas that of Proteus, Triton, or Palaemon—reared on land the son of Athamas.“Not long ago I was a mortal man,yet even then my thought turned to the seaand all my living came from waters deep,for I would drag the nets that swept up fish,or, seated on a rock, I flung the lineforth from the rod. The shore I loved was neara verdant meadow. One side were the waves,the other grass, which never had been touchedby horned, grazing cattle. Harmless sheepand shaggy goats had never cropped it—noindustrious bee came there to harvest flowers;no festive garlands had been gathered there,adornments of the head; no mower's handshad ever cut it. I was certainlythe first who ever sat upon that turf,—while I was drying there the dripping nets.And so that I might in due order countthe fish that I had caught, I laid out thosewhich by good chance were driven into my nets,or credulous, were caught on my barbed hooks.“It all seems like a fiction (but what goodcan I derive from fictions?) just as soonas any of my fish-prey touched the grass,they instantly began to move and skipas usual in sea water. While I pausedand wondered, all of them slid to the waves,and left me, their late captor, and the shore.“I was amazed and doubtful, a long time;while I considered what could be the cause.What god had done this? Or perhaps the juiceof some herb caused it? ‘But,’ I said, ‘what herbcan have such properties?’ and with my handI plucked the grass and chewed it with my teeth.My throat had hardly time to swallow thoseunheard of juices, when I suddenlyfelt all my entrails throbbing inwardly,and my entire mind also, felt possessedby passions foreign to my life before.“I could not stay in that place, and I saidwith shouting, ‘Farewell! dry land! never moreshall I revisit you;’ and with those wordsupon my lips, I plunged beneath the waves.The gods of that deep water gave to me,when they received me, kindred honors, whilethey prayed Oceanus and Tethys bothto take from me such mortal essence asmight yet remain. So I was purifiedby them and after a good charm had beennine times repeated over me, which washedaway all guilt, I was commanded thento put my breast beneath a hundred streams.“So far I can relate to you all thingsmost worthy to be told; for all so farI can remember; but from that time onI was unconscious of the many thingsthat followed. When my mind returned to me,I found myself entirely differentfrom what I was before; and my changed mindwas not the same as it had always been.Then, for the first time I beheld this beardso green in its deep color, and I sawmy flowing hair which now I sweep alongthe spacious seas, and my huge shoulders withtheir azure colored arms, and I observedmy leg extremities hung taperingexactly perfect as a finny fish.“But what avail is this new form to me.Although it pleased the Ocean deities?What benefit, although I am a god,if you are not persuaded by these things?”While he was telling wonders such as these—quite ready to say more—Scylla aroseand left the god. Provoked at his repulse—enraged, he hastened to the marvellous courtof Circe, well known daughter of the Sun.

Book 14

Now the Euboean dweller in great waves,Glaucus, had left behind the crest of Aetna,raised upward from a giant's head; and leftthe Cyclops' fields, that never had been tornby harrow or by plough and never wereindebted to the toil of oxen yoked;left Zancle, also, and the opposite wallsof Rhegium, and the sea, abundant causeof shipwreck, which confined with double shoresbounds the Ausonian and Sicilian lands.All these behind him, Glaucus, swimming onwith his huge hands through those Tyrrhenian seas,drew near the hills so rich in magic herbsand halls of Circe, daughter of the Sun,—halls filled with men in guise of animals.After due salutations had been given—received by her as kindly—Glaucus said,“You as a goddess, certainly should havecompassion upon me, a god; for youalone (if I am worthy of it) canrelieve my passion. What the power of herbscan be, Titania, none knows more than I,for by their power I was myself transformed.To make the cause of my strange madness known,I have found Scylla on Italian shores,directly opposite Messenian walls.“It shames me to recount my promises,entreaties, and caresses, and at lastrejection of my suit. If you have knowna power of incantation, I imploreyou now repeat that incantation here,with sacred lips—If herbs have greater power,use the tried power of herbs. But I would notrequest a cure—the healing of this wound.Much better than an end of pain, let hershare, and feel with me my impassioned flame.”But Circe was more quick than any otherto burn with passion's flame. It may have beenher nature or it may have been the workof Venus, angry at her tattling sire.“You might do better,” she replied, “to courtone who is willing, one who wants your love,and feels a like desire. You did deserveto win her love, yes, to be wooed yourself.In fact you might be. If you give some hope,you have my word, you shall indeed be wooed.That you may have no doubt, and so retainall confidence in your attraction's power—behold! I am a goddess, and I amthe daughter also, of the radiant Sun!And I who am so potent with my charms,and I who am so potent with my herbs,wish only to be yours. Despise her whodespises you, and her who is attachedto you repay with like attachment—soby one act offer each her just reward.”But Glaucus answered her attempt of love,“The trees will sooner grow in ocean waves,the sea-weed sooner grow on mountain tops,than I shall change my love for graceful! Scylla.”The goddess in her jealous rage could notand would not injure him, whom she still loved,but turned her wrath upon the one preferred.She bruised immediately the many herbsmost infamous for horrid juices, which,when bruised, she mingled with most artful careand incantations given by Hecate.Then, clothed in azure vestments, she passed throughher troop of fawning savage animals,and issued from the center of her hall.Pacing from there to Rhegium, oppositethe dangerous rocks of Zancle, she at onceentered the tossed waves boiling up with tides:on these as if she walked on the firm shore,she set her feet and, hastening on dry shod,she skimmed along the surface of the deep.Not far away there was an inlet curved,round as a bent bow, which was often usedby Scylla as a favorite retreat.There, she withdrew from heat of sea and skywhen in the zenith blazed the unclouded sunand cast the shortest shadows on the ground.Circe infected it before that hour,polluting it with monster-breeding drugs.She sprinkled juices over it, distilledfrom an obnoxious root, and thrice times nineshe muttered over it with magic lips,her most mysterious charm involved in wordsof strangest import and of dubious thought.Scylla came there and waded in waist deep,then saw her loins defiled with barking shapes.Believing they could be no part of her,she ran and tried to drive them back and fearedthe boisterous canine jaws. But what she fledshe carried with her. And, feeling for her thighs,her legs, and feet, she found Cerberian jawsinstead. She rises from a rage of dogs,and shaggy backs encircle her shortened loins.The lover Glaucus wept. He fled the embraceof Circe and her hostile power of herbsand magic spells. But Scylla did not leavethe place of her disaster; and, as soonas she had opportunity, for hateof Circe, she robbed Ulysses of his men.She would have wrecked the Trojan ships, if shehad not been changed beforehand to a rockwhich to this day reveals a craggy rim.And even the rock awakes the sailors' dread.

After the Trojan ships, pushed by their oars,had safely passed by Scylla and the fierceCharybdis, and with care had then approachednear the Ausonian shore, a roaring galebore them far southward to the Libyan coast.And then Sidonian Dido, who was doomednot calmly to endure the loss of herloved Phrygian husband, graciously receivedAeneas to her home and her regard:and on a pyre, erected with pretenseof holy rites, she fell upon the sword.Deceived herself, she there deceived them all.Aeneas, fleeing the new walls built onthat sandy shore, revisited the landof Eryx and Acestes, his true friend.There he performed a hallowed sacrificeand paid due honor to his father's tomb.And presently he loosened from that shorethe ships which Iris, Juno's minister,had almost burned; and sailing, passed far offthe kingdom of the son of Hippotas,in those hot regions smoking with the fumesof burning sulphur, and he left behindthe rocky haunt of Achelous' daughters,the Sirens. Then, when his good ship had lostthe pilot, he coasted near Inarime,near Prochyta, and near the barren hillwhich marks another island, Pithecusae,an island named from strange inhabitants.The father of the gods abhorred the fraudsand perjuries of the Cercopiansand for the crimes of that bad treacherous race,transformed its men to ugly animals,appearing unlike men, although like men.He had contracted and had bent their limbs,and flattened out their noses, bent back towardstheir foreheads; he had furrowed every facewith wrinkles of old age, and made them livein that spot, after he had covered alltheir bodies with long yellow ugly hair.Besides all that, he took away from themthe use of language and control of tongues,so long inclined to dreadful perjury;and left them always to complain of lifeand their ill conduct in harsh jabbering.

After Aeneas had passed by all thoseand seen to his right hand the distant wallsguarding the city of Parthenope,he passed on his left hand a mound,grave of the tuneful son of Aeolus.Landing on Cumae's marshy shore, he reacheda cavern, home of the long lived Sibylla,and prayed that she would give him at the lake,Avernus, access to his father's shade.She raised her countenance, from gazing onthe ground, and with an inspiration givento her by influence of the god, she said,“Much you would have, O man of famous deeds,whose courage is attested by the sword,whose filial piety is proved by flame.But, Trojan, have no fear. I grant your wish,and with my guidance you shall look uponthe latest kingdom of the world, shall seeElysian homes and your dear father's shade,for virtue there is everywhere a way.”She spoke, and pointed out to him a branchrefulgent with bright gold, found in the woodsof Juno of Avernus, and commanded himto pluck it from the stem. Aeneas didwhat she advised him. Then he saw the wealthof the dread Orcus, and he saw his ownancestors, and beheld the aged ghostof great Anchises. There he learned the lawsof that deep region, and what dangers mustbe undergone by him in future wars.Retracing with his weary steps the pathup to the light, he found relief from toilin converse with the sage Cumaean guide.While in thick dusk he trod the frightful way,“Whether you are a deity,” he said,“Or human and most favored by the gods,to me you always will appear divine.I will confess, too, my existence hereis due to your kind aid, for by your willI visited the dark abodes of death,and I escaped the death which I beheld.For this great service, when I shall emergeinto the sunlit air, I will erectfor you a temple and will burn for yousweet incense kindled at the altar flame.”The prophetess looked on him and with sighs,“I am no goddess,” she replied, “nor isit well to honor any mortal headwith tribute of the holy frankincense.And, that you may not err through ignorance,I tell you life eternal without endwas;offered to me, if I would but yieldvirginity to Phoebus for his love.And, while he hoped for this and in desireoffered to bribe me for my virtue, firstwith gifts, he said, ‘Maiden of Cumae choosewhatever you may wish, and you shall gainall that you wish.’ I pointed to a heapof dust collected there, and foolishlyreplied, ‘As many birthdays must be givento me as there are particles of sand.’“For I forgot to wish them days of changeless youth.He gave long life and offered youth besides,if I would grant his wish. This I refused,I live unwedded still. My happier timehas fled away, now comes with tottering stepinfirm old age, which I shall long endure.You find me ending seven long centuries,and there remain for me, before my yearsequal the number of those grains of sand,three hundred harvests, three hundred vintages!The time will come, when long increase of dayswill so contract me from my present sizeand so far waste away my limbs with agethat I shall dwindle to a trifling weight,so trifling, it will never be believed I once was loved and even pleased a god.Perhaps, even Phoebus will not recognize me,or will deny he ever bore me love.But, though I change till eye would never know me,my voice shall live, the fates will leave my voice.”