Aeneid

Virgil

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

  1. Then rallied from the grove-clad, Iofty isle
  2. the Cyclops' clan, and lined the beach and bay.
  3. We saw each lonely eyeball glare in vain,
  4. as side by side those brothers Aetna-born
  5. stood towering high, a conclave dark and dire:
  6. as when, far up some mountain's famous crest,
  7. wind-fronting oaks or cone-clad cypresses
  8. have made assembling in the solemn hills,
  9. Jove's giant wood or Dian's sacred grove.
  10. We, terror-struck, would fly we knew not where,
  11. with loosened sheet and canvas swelling strong
  12. before a welcome wind; but Helenus
  13. bade us both Scylla and Charybdis fear,
  14. where 'twixt the twain death straitly hems the way;
  15. and so the counsel was to veer our bark
  16. the course it came. But lo! a northern gale
  17. burst o'er us from Pelorus' narrowed side,
  18. and on we rode far past Pantagia's bay
  19. of unhewn rock, and past the haven strong
  20. of Megara, and Thapsus Iying low.
  21. Such were the names retold, and such the shores
  22. shown us by Achemenides, whose fate
  23. made him familiar there, for he had sailed
  24. with evil-starred Ulysses o'er that sea.