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Notes Display Latin text | translated by Theodore C. Williams Book IX Chapter 4: Sacred origin of Aeneas' ships | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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What god, O Muses, saved the Trojans then from wrathful flame? Who shielded then the fleet, I pray you tell, from bursting storm of fire? From hoary teld the tale, but its renown sings on forever. When Aeneas first on Phrygian Ida hewed the sacred wood for rib and spar, and soon would put to sea, that mighty mother of the gods [Note 1], they say, the Berecynthian goddess, thus to Jove addressed her plea: Grant, O my son, a boon, which thy dear mother asks, who aided thee to quell Olympian war. A grove I have of sacred pine, long-loved from year to year. On lofty hill it grew, and thither came my worshippers with gifts, in secret gloom of pine trees dark and shadowing maple-boughs.; these on the Dardan warrior at his need I, not unwilling, for his fleet bestowed. But I have fears. O, let a parent's prayer in this prevail, and bid my care begone! Let not rude voyages nor the shock of storm my ships subdue, but let their sacred birth on my charmed hills their strength and safety be! Then spake her son, who guides the wheeling spheres: Wouldst thou, my mother, strive to oversway the course of Fate? What means this prayer of thine? Can it be granted ships of mortal mould to wear immortal being? Wouldst thou see Aeneas pass undoubting and secure through doubtful strait and peril? On what god was e'er such power bestowed? Yet will I grant a different boon. Whatever ships shall find a safe Ausonian haven, and convey safe through the seas to yon Laurentian plain the Dardan king, from such I will remove their perishable shapes, and bid them be sea-nymphs divine, like Nereus' daughters fair, Doto and Galatea, whose white breasts divide the foaming wave. He said, and swore by his Tartarean brother's [Note 2] mournful stream, the pitch-black floods and dark engulfing shore of Styx; then great Jove bowed his head, and all Olympus quaked at his consenting brow. |
77-106 Quis deus, o Musae, tam saeua incendia Teucris auertit? tantos ratibus quis depulit ignis? dicite: prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis. tempore quo primum Phrygia formabat in Ida Aeneas classem et pelagi petere alta parabat, ipsa deum fertur genetrix Berecyntia magnum uocibus his adfata Iouem: 'da, nate, petenti, quod tua cara parens domito te poscit Olympo. pinea silua mihi multos dilecta per annos, lucus in arce fuit summa, quo sacra ferebant, nigranti picea trabibusque obscurus acernis. has ego Dardanio iuueni, cum classis egeret, laeta dedi; nunc sollicitam timor anxius angit. solue metus atque hoc precibus sine posse parentem, ne cursu quassatae ullo neu turbine uenti uincantur: prosit nostris in montibus ortas.' filius huic contra, torquet qui sidera mundi: 'o genetrix, quo fata uocas? aut quid petis istis? mortaline manu factae immortale carinae fas habeant? certusque incerta pericula lustret Aeneas? cui tanta deo permissa potestas? immo, ubi defunctae finem portusque tenebunt Ausonios olim, quaecumque euaserit undis Dardaniumque ducem Laurentia uexerit arua, mortalem eripiam formam magnique iubebo aequoris esse deas, qualis Nereia Doto et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum.' dixerat idque ratum Stygii per flumina fratris, per pice torrentis atraque uoragine ripas adnuit, et totum nutu tremefecit Olympum. |