Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/162



So saying and weeping, he gives rope to his fleet, and in due time is wafted smoothly to Cumæ's shores of Eubœan fame. They turn their prows seaward: then the anchor with griping fang began to moor vessel after vessel, and crooked keels fringe all the coast. With fiery zeal the     5 crews leap out on the Hesperian shore: some look for the seed of fire where it lies deep down in the veins of flint: some strip the woods, the wild beast's shaggy covert, and point with joy to the streams they find. But good Æneas repairs to the heights on which Apollo sits exalted, and     10 the privacy of the dread Sibyl,[o] stretching far away into a vast cavern—the Sibyl, into whose breast the prophet that speaks at Delos breathes his own mighty mind and soul, and opens the future to her eye. And now they are entering the groves of the Trivian goddess and the golden     15 palace.

Dædalus, so runs the legend, flying from Minos' sceptre, dared to trust himself in air on swift wings of his own workmanship, sailed to the cold north along an unwonted way, and at last stood buoyant on the top of this Eubœan hill. 20 Grateful to the land that first received him, he dedicated to thee, Phœbus, his feathery oarage, and raised a mighty temple. On the doors was seen Androgeos' death: there too were the sons of Cecrops,[o] constrained—O cruel woe! to pay in penalty the yearly tale of seven of their sons'     25 lives: the urn is standing, and the lots drawn out. On the other side, breasting the wave, the Gnossian land frowns responsive. There is Pasiphäe's tragic passion for the bull, and the mingled birth, the Minotaur, half man, half brute, a monument of monstrous love. There is the edifice,[o]     30 that marvel of toiling skill, and its inextricable maze