Then to the royal seer I thus began :
O thou who know'st, beyond the reach of man,
The laws of heav'n, and what the stars decree,
Whom Phœbus taught unerring prophecy,
From his own tripod, and his holy tree-
Skill'd in the wing'd inhabitants of air,
What auspices their notes and flights declare-
O! say for all religious rites portend
A happy voyage, and a prosp'rous end;
And ev'ry pow'r and omen of the sky
Direct my course for destined Italy ;
But only dire Celæno, from the gods,
A dismal famine fatally forbodes-
O! say, what dangers I am first to shun,
What toils to vanquish, and what course to run.'
The prophet first with sacrifice adores
The greater gods; their pardon then implores ;
Unbinds the fillet from his holy head;
To Phœbus next my trembling steps he led,
Full of religious doubts and awful dread,
Then, with his god possess'd, before the shrine,
These words proceeded from his mouth divine :
O goddess-born! (for heav'ns appointed will,
With greater auspices of good than ill,
Foreshows thy voyage, and thy course directs;
Thy fates conspire, and Jove himself protects,)
Of many things, some few I shall explain,
Teach thee to shun the dangers of the main,
And how at length the promised shore to gain.
The rest the Fates from Helenus conceal,
And Juno's angry pow'r forbids to tell.
First, then, that happy shore, that seems so nigh,
Will far from your deluded wishes fly:
Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy :
For you must cruise along Sicilian shores,
And stem the currents with your struggling oars;
Then round th' Italian coast your navy steer;
And, after this, to Circe's island veer;
And, last, before your new foundations rise,
Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether
Now mark the signs of future ease and rest;
And bear them safely treasured in thy breast.
When, in the shady shelter of a wood,
And near the margin of a gentle flood,
Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground,
With thirty sucking young encompass'd round ;
The dam and offspring white as falling snow
These on thy city shall their name bestow;
And there shall end thy labors and thy woe.
Nor let the threaten'd famine fright thy mind;
For Phœbus will assist; and Fate the way will find..
Let not thy course to that ill coast be bent,
Which fronts from far th' Epirian continent:
Those parts are all by Grecian foes possess'd.
The savage Locrians here the shores infest :
There fierce Idomeneus his city builds,
And guards with arms the Salentinian fields ;
And on the mountain's brow Petilia stands,
Which Philoctetes with his troops commands.
Ev'n when thy fleet is landed on the shore,
And priests with holy vows the gods adore,
Then with a purple veil involve your eyes,
Lest hostile faces blast the sacrifice.
These rites and customs to the rest commend,
That to your pious race they may descend.
When, parted hence, the wind that ready waits For Sicily, shall bear you to the straits:
Where proud Pelorus opes a wider way,
Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea:
Veer starboard sea and land. Th' Italian shore,
And fair Sicilia's coast, were one, before
An earthquake caused the flaw: the roaring tides
The passage broke, that land from land divides;
And, where the lands retired, the rushing ocean
Distinguish'd by the straits, on either hand,
Now rising cities in long order stand,
And fruitful fields:- so much can time invade
The mould'ring work, that beauteous Nature made.-
Far on the right, her dogs foul Scylla hides :
Charybdis, roaring, on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides;
Then spouts them from below: with fury driv'n,
The waves mount up, and wash the face of heav'n. 540
But Scylla from her den, with open jaws,
The sinking vessel in her eddy draws,
Then dashes on the rocks. A human face,
And virgin bosom, hides her tail's disgrace ;
Her parts obscene below the waves descend,
With dogs inclosed; and in a dolphin end.
'Tis safer, then, to bear aloof to sea,
And coast Pachynus, though with more delay,
Than once to view mis-shapen Scylla near,
And the loud yell of wat'ry wolves to hear.
Besides, if faith to Helenus be due,
And if prophetic Phœbus tell me true,
Do not this precept of your friend forget,
Which therefore more than once I must repeat:
Thus, at the length, your passage shall be free,
And you shall safe descend on Italy.
Arrived at Cumæ, when you view the flood
Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,
The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,
Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclined.
She sings the Fates, and, in her frantic fits,
The notes and names, inscribed to leaves commits.
What she commits to leaves, in order laid,
Before the cavern's entrance are display'd:
Unmoved they lie: but, if a blast of wind
Without, or vapors issue from behind,
The leaves are borne aloft in liquid air;
And she resumes no more her museful care,
Nor gathers from the rocks her scatter'd verse,
Nor sets in order what the winds disperse.
Thus, many not succeeding, most upbraid
The madness of the visionary maid,
And with loud curses leave the mystic shade.
Think it not loss of time awhile to stay.
Though thy companions chide thy long delay;
Though summon'd to the seas, though pleasing gales
Invite thy course, and stretch thy swelling sails: 581
But beg the sacred priestess to relate
With willing words, and not to write, thy fate.
The fierce Italian people she will show,
And all thy wars, and all thy future woe,
And what thou may'st avoid, and what must undergo.
She shall direct thy course, instruct thy mind,
And teach thee how the happy shores to find.
This is what heav'n allows me to relate :
Now part in peace; pursue thy better fate,
And raise, by strength of arms, the Trojan state.'
This when the priest with friendly voice declared,
He gave me license, and rich gifts prepared :
Bounteous of treasure, he supplied my want
With heavy gold, and polish'd elephant,
Then Dodonæan caldrons put on board,
And ev'ry ship with sums of silver stored.
A trusty coat of mail to me he sent,
Thrice chain'd with gold, for use and ornament;
The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest,
That florish'd with a plume and waving crest.
Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends :
And large recruits he to my navy sends-
Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;
Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.
Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,
Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales.
The prophet bless'd the parting crew; and, last,
With words like these, his ancient friend
braced:
Old happy man, the care of gods above,
Whom heav'nly Venus honor'd with her love,
And twice preserved thy life when Troy was lost!
Behold from far the wish'd Ausonian coast:
There land; but take a larger compass round;
For that before is all forbidden ground.
The shore that Phœbus has design'd for you,
At farther distance lies, conceal'd from view.
Go happy hence, and seek your new abodes,
Bless'd in a son, and favor'd by the gods :
For I with useless words prolong your stay,
When southern gales have summon'd you away.'
Nor less the queen our parting thence deplored,
Nor was less bounteous than her Trojan lord.
A noble present to my son she brought,
A robe with flow'rs on golden tissue wrought.
A Phrygian vest; and loads with gifts beside
Of precious texture, and of Asian pride.
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