The Aeneid of Virgil

BOOK FIFTH

THE GAMES OF THE FLEET

Meanwhile Aeneas and his fleet in unwavering track now held mid passage, and cleft the waves that blackened under the North, looking back on the city that even now gleams with hapless Elissa's funeral flame. Why the broad blaze is lit lies unknown; but the bitter pain of a great love trampled, and the knowledge of what woman can do in madness, draw the Teucrians' hearts to gloomy guesses.

When their ships held the deep, nor any land farther appears, the seas all round, and all round the sky, a dusky shower drew up overhead, carrying night and storm, and the wave shuddered and gloomed. Palinurus, master of the fleet, cries from the high stern: 'Alas, why have these heavy storm-clouds girt the sky? lord Neptune, what wilt thou?' Then he bids clear the rigging and bend strongly to the oars, and brings the sails across the wind, saying thus:

'Noble Aeneas, not did Jupiter give word and warrant would I hope to reach Italy under such a sky. The shifting winds roar athwart our course, and blow stronger out of the black west, and the air thickens into mist: nor are we fit to force our way on and across. Fortune is the stronger; let us follow her, and turn our course whither she calls. Not far away, I think, are the faithful shores of thy brother Eryx, and the Sicilian haven, if only my memory retraces rightly the stars I watched before.'

Then good Aeneas: 'Even I ere now discern the winds will have it so, and thou urgest against them in vain. Turn thou the course of our sailing. Could any land be welcomer to me, or where I would sooner choose to put in my weary ships, than this that hath Dardanian Acestes to greet me, and laps in its embrace lord Anchises' dust?' This said, they steer for harbour, while the following west wind stretches their sails; the fleet runs fast down the flood, and at last they land joyfully on the familiar beach. But Acestes high on a hill-top, amazed at the friendly squadron approaching from afar, hastens towards them, weaponed and clad in the shaggy skin of a Libyan she-bear. Him a Trojan mother conceived and bore to Crimisus river; not forgetful of his parentage, he wishes them joy of their return, and gladly entertains them on his rustic treasure and comforts their weariness with his friendly store. So soon as the morrow's clear daylight had chased the stars out of the east, Aeneas calls his comrades along the beach together, and from a mounded hillock speaks:

'Great people of Dardanus, born of the high blood of gods, the yearly circle of the months is measured out to fulfilment since we laid the dust in earth, all that was left of my divine father, and sadly consecrated our altars. And now the day is at hand (this, O gods, was your will), which I will ever keep in grief, ever in honour. Did I spend it an exile on Gaetulian quicksands, did it surprise me on the Argolic sea or in Mycenae town, yet would I fulfil the yearly vows and annual ordinance of festival, and pile the altars with their due gifts. Now we are led hither, to the very dust and ashes of our father, not as I deem without divine purpose and influence, and borne home into the friendly haven. Up then and let us all gather joyfully to the sacrifice: pray we for winds, and may he deign that I pay these rites to him year by year in an established city and consecrated temple. Two head of oxen Acestes, the seed of Troy, gives to each of your ships by tale: invite to the feast your own ancestral gods of the household, and those whom our host Acestes worships. Further, so the ninth Dawn uplift the gracious day upon men, and her shafts unveil the world, I will ordain contests for my Trojans; first for swift ships; then whoso excels in the foot-race, and whoso, confident in strength and skill, comes to shoot light arrows, or adventures to join battle with gloves of raw hide; let all be here, and let merit look for the prize and palm. Now all be hushed, and twine your temples with boughs.'

So speaks he, and shrouds his brows with his mother's myrtle. So Helymus does, so Aletes ripe of years, so the boy Ascanius, and the rest of the people follow. He advances from the assembly to the tomb among a throng of many thousands that crowd about him; here he pours on the ground in fit libation two goblets of pure wine, two of new milk, two of consecrated blood, and flings bright blossoms, saying thus: 'Hail, holy father, once again; hail, ashes of him I saved in vain, and soul and shade of my sire! Thou wert not to share the search for Italian borders and destined fields, nor the dim Ausonian Tiber.' Thus had he spoken; when from beneath the sanctuary a snake slid out in seven vast coils and sevenfold slippery spires, quietly circling the grave and gliding from altar to altar, his green chequered body and the spotted lustre of his scales ablaze with gold, as the bow in the cloud darts a thousand changing dyes athwart the sun: Aeneas stood amazed at the sight. At last he wound his long train among the vessels and polished cups, and tasted the feast, and again leaving the altars where he had fed, crept harmlessly back beneath the tomb. Doubtful if he shall think it the Genius of the ground or his father's ministrant, he slays, as is fit, two sheep of two years old, as many swine and dark-backed steers, pouring the while cups of wine, and calling on the soul of great Anchises and the ghost rearisen from Acheron. Therewithal his comrades, as each hath store, bring gifts to heap joyfully on the altars, and slay steers in sacrifice: others set cauldrons arow, and, lying along the grass, heap live embers under spits and roast the flesh.

The desired day came, and now the ninth Dawn rode up clear and bright behind Phaëthon's coursers; and the name and renown of illustrious Acestes had stirred up all the bordering people; their holiday throng filled the shore, to see Aeneas' men, and some ready to join in contest. First of all the prizes are laid out to view in the middle of the racecourse; tripods of sacrifice, green garlands and palms, the reward of the conquerors, armour and garments dipped in purple, talents of silver and gold: and from a hillock in the midst the trumpet sounds the games begun. First is the contest of rowing, and four ships matched in weight enter, the choice of all the fleet. Mnestheus' keen oarsmen drive the swift Dragon, Mnestheus the Italian to be, from whose name is the Memmian family; Gyas the huge bulk of the huge Chimaera, a floating town, whom her triple-tiered Dardanian crew urge on with oars rising in threefold rank; Sergestus, from whom the Sergian house holds her name, sails in the tall Centaur; and in the sea-coloured Scylla Cloanthus, whence is thy family, Cluentius of Rome.

Apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that the swoln waves beat and drown what time the north-western gales of winter blot out the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where cormorants love best to take the sun. Here lord Aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark for the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course round. Then they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold and purple; the rest of the crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked shoulders glisten wet with oil. They sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and heightened ambition drain their riotous blood. Then, when the clear trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap forward from their line; the shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels are swept into foam by the arms as they swing backward. They cleave their furrows together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed prows. Not with speed so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots over the plain, as they rush streaming from the barriers; not so do their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team, and hang forward on the whip. All the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of men that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back their cries; the noise buffets and re-echoes from the hills. Gyas shoots out in front of the noisy crowd, and glides foremost along the water; whom Cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held back by his dragging weight of pine. After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and the Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it, now the vast Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both together, their stems in a line, and their keels driving long furrows through the salt water-ways. And now they drew nigh the rock, and were hard on the goal; when Gyas as he led, winner over half the flood, cries aloud to Menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'Whither away so far to the right? This way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the oarblade graze the leftward reefs. Others may keep to deep water.' He spoke; but Menoetes, fearing blind rocks, turns the bow away towards the open sea. 'Whither wanderest thou away? to the rocks, Menoetes!' again shouts Gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees Cloanthus passing up behind and keeping nearer. Between Gyas' ship and the echoing crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader, and leaving the goal behind is in safe water. Then indeed grief burned fierce through his strong frame, and tears sprung out on his cheeks; heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he flings the too cautious Menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself succeeds as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and turns his tiller in to shore. But Menoetes, when at last he rose struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing years and wet in his dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a dry rock. The Teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to see him spitting the salt water from his chest. At this a joyful hope kindled in the two behind, Sergestus and Mnestheus, of catching up Gyas' wavering course. Sergestus slips forward as he nears the rock, yet not all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in front, part pressed by the Dragon's jealous prow. But striding amidships between his comrades, Mnestheus cheers them on: 'Now, now swing back, oarsmen who were Hector's comrades, whom I chose to follow me in Troy's extremity; now put forth the might and courage you showed in Gaetulian quicksands, amid Ionian seas and Malea's chasing waves. Not the first place do I now seek for Mnestheus, nor strive for victory; though ah!—yet let them win, O Neptune, to whom thou givest it. But the shame of coming in last! Win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that disaster!' His men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork of the ship quivers to their mighty strokes, and the ground runs from under her; limbs and parched lips shake with their rapid panting, and sweat flows in streams all over them. Mere chance brought the crew the glory they desired. For while Sergestus drives his prow furiously in towards the rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on a rock that ran out; the reef ground, the oars struck and shivered on the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung. The sailors leap up and hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-pointed boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But Mnestheus, rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping and winds at his call, issues into the shelving water and runs down the open sea. As a pigeon whose house and sweet nestlings are in the rock's recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight over the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping pinions; then gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid way and moves not her rapid wings; so Mnestheus, so the Dragon under him swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so her own speed carries her flying on. And first Sergestus is left behind, struggling on the steep rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race with broken oars. Next he catches up Gyas and the vast bulk of the Chimaera; she gives way, without her steersman. And now on the very goal Cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues and presses hard, straining all his strength. Then indeed the shouts redouble, as all together eagerly cheer on the pursuer, and the sky echoes their din. These scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp, and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes with belief in it. And haply they had carried the prize with prows abreast, had not Cloanthus, stretching both his open hands over the sea, poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows: 'Gods who are sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this beach will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will cast his entrails into the salt flood and pour liquid wine.' He spoke, and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea heard him, with all Phorcus' choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty hand pushed him on his way. The ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. Then the seed of Anchises, summoning all in order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry, and dresses his brows in green bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large talent of silver to take away. For their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a scarf wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep Meliboean purple; woven in it is the kingly boy on leafy Ida, chasing swift stags with javelin and racing feet, keen and as one panting; him Jove's swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from Ida in his talons; his aged guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds rings fierce into the air. But to him who, next in merit, held the second place, he gives to wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of polished gold, stripped by his own conquering hand from Demoleos under tall Troy by the swift Simoïs, an ornament and safeguard among arms. Scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants Phegeus and Sagaris carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, Demoleos at full speed would chase the scattered Trojans. The third prize he makes twin cauldrons of brass, and bowls wrought in silver and rough with tracery. And now all moved away in the pride and wealth of their prizes, their brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by all his art from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier, Sergestus brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. Even as often a serpent caught on a highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him or a wayfarer left him half dead and mangled with the blow of a heavy stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to escape, in part undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part the disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his own body; so the ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under full sail glides into the harbour mouth. Glad that the ship is saved and the crew brought back, Aeneas presents Sergestus with his promised reward. A slave woman is given him not unskilled in Minerva's labours, Pholoë the Cretan, with twin boys at her breast.