Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/136



Æneas, meantime, was well on his road, holding with set purpose on the watery way, and cutting through billows gloomed by the North wind, with eyes ever and anon turned back to the city, which poor Elissa's funeral flame now began to illumine. What cause has lit up a blaze so     5 mighty they cannot tell; but as they think of the cruel pangs which follow outrage done on great love, and remember what a frantic woman can do, the Teucrian hearts are swept through a train of dismal presage.

Soon as the ships gained the mid-ocean, and no land met     10 the view any more—waters everywhere and everywhere skies—a dark rain-cloud arose and stood over the hero's head, charged with night and winter tempest, and darkness ruffled the billow's crest. Palinurus himself, the pilot, was heard from the lofty stern:—"Ah! why has such an     15 army of storms encompassed the heaven? What hast thou for us now, old Father Neptune?" No sooner said than he bids them gather up the tackle and ply the lusty oar, and shifts the sheet to the wind, and speaks thus:—"Noble Æneas, though Jove himself were to pledge me     20 his faith, I could not hope to reach Italy with a sky like this. The winds shift and storm crosswise, ever rising from the blackening West, and the mist is being massed into clouds. We cannot make head against them, or struggle as we should. Well, since Fortune exerts her      25 tyranny, let us follow, and turn our faces as she pulls the rein. I take it, too, we are not far from the friendly brother-coast of your Eryx, and the havens of Sicania, if my memory serves me as I retrace the stars I watched long ago." To him good Æneas:—"I have seen myself     30