Aeneid

Virgil

Vergil. The Aeneid of Virgil. Williams, Theodore, C, translator. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910.

  1. While thus he cried to Heaven, a shrieking blast
  2. smote full upon the sail. Up surged the waves
  3. to strike the very stars; in fragments flew
  4. the shattered oars; the helpless vessel veered
  5. and gave her broadside to the roaring flood,
  6. where watery mountains rose and burst and fell.
  7. Now high in air she hangs, then yawning gulfs
  8. lay bare the shoals and sands o'er which she drives.
  9. Three ships a whirling south wind snatched and flung
  10. on hidden rocks,—altars of sacrifice
  11. Italians call them, which lie far from shore
  12. a vast ridge in the sea; three ships beside
  13. an east wind, blowing landward from the deep,
  14. drove on the shallows,—pitiable sight,—
  15. and girdled them in walls of drifting sand.
  16. That ship, which, with his friend Orontes, bore
  17. the Lycian mariners, a great, plunging wave
  18. struck straight astern, before Aeneas' eyes.
  19. Forward the steersman rolled and o'er the side
  20. fell headlong, while three times the circling flood
  21. spun the light bark through swift engulfing seas.
  22. Look, how the lonely swimmers breast the wave!
  23. And on the waste of waters wide are seen
  24. weapons of war, spars, planks, and treasures rare,
  25. once Ilium's boast, all mingled with the storm.
  26. Now o'er Achates and Ilioneus,
  27. now o'er the ship of Abas or Aletes,
  28. bursts the tempestuous shock; their loosened seams
  29. yawn wide and yield the angry wave its will.