The Aeneid. Публий Марон Вергилий

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СКАЧАТЬ shrine, my vows present:

      ‘Give, O Thymbraeus, give a resting place

      To the sad relics of the Trojan race;

      A seat secure, a region of their own,

      A lasting empire, and a happier town.

      Where shall we fix? where shall our labors end?

      Whom shall we follow, and what fate attend?

      Let not my pray’rs a doubtful answer find;

      But in clear auguries unveil thy mind.’

      Scarce had I said: he shook the holy ground,

      The laurels, and the lofty hills around;

      And from the tripos rush’d a bellowing sound.

      Prostrate we fell; confess’d the present god,

      Who gave this answer from his dark abode:

      ‘Undaunted youths, go, seek that mother earth

      From which your ancestors derive their birth.

      The soil that sent you forth, her ancient race

      In her old bosom shall again embrace.

      Thro’ the wide world th’ Aeneian house shall reign,

      And children’s children shall the crown sustain.’

      Thus Phoebus did our future fates disclose:

      A mighty tumult, mix’d with joy, arose.

      “All are concern’d to know what place the god

      Assign’d, and where determin’d our abode.

      My father, long revolving in his mind

      The race and lineage of the Trojan kind,

      Thus answer’d their demands: ‘Ye princes, hear

      Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear.

      The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,

      Sacred of old to Jove’s imperial name,

      In the mid ocean lies, with large command,

      And on its plains a hundred cities stand.

      Another Ida rises there, and we

      From thence derive our Trojan ancestry.

      From thence, as ’tis divulg’d by certain fame,

      To the Rhoetean shores old Teucrus came;

      There fix’d, and there the seat of empire chose,

      Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose.

      In humble vales they built their soft abodes,

      Till Cybele, the mother of the gods,

      With tinkling cymbals charm’d th’ Idaean woods,

      She secret rites and ceremonies taught,

      And to the yoke the savage lions brought.

      Let us the land which Heav’n appoints, explore;

      Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.

      If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,

      The third propitious dawn discovers Crete.’

      Thus having said, the sacrifices, laid

      On smoking altars, to the gods he paid:

      A bull, to Neptune an oblation due,

      Another bull to bright Apollo slew;

      A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please,

      And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas.

      Ere this, a flying rumor had been spread

      That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled,

      Expell’d and exil’d; that the coast was free

      From foreign or domestic enemy.

      “We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea;

      By Naxos, fam’d for vintage, make our way;

      Then green Donysa pass; and sail in sight

      Of Paros’ isle, with marble quarries white.

      We pass the scatter’d isles of Cyclades,

      That, scarce distinguish’d, seem to stud the seas.

      The shouts of sailors double near the shores;

      They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars.

      ‘All hands aloft! for Crete! for Crete!’ they cry,

      And swiftly thro’ the foamy billows fly.

      Full on the promis’d land at length we bore,

      With joy descending on the Cretan shore.

      With eager haste a rising town I frame,

      Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name:

      The name itself was grateful; I exhort

      To found their houses, and erect a fort.

      Our ships are haul’d upon the yellow strand;

      The youth begin to till the labor’d land;

      And I myself new marriages promote,

      Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot;

      When rising vapors choke the wholesome air,

      And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year;

      The trees devouring caterpillars burn;

      Parch’d was the grass, and blighted was the corn:

      Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high,

      With pestilential heat infects the sky:

      My men—some fall, the rest in fevers fry.

      Again my father bids me seek the shore

      Of sacred Delos, and the god implore,

      To learn what end of woes we might expect,

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