The shields of men, and helms of men, and bodies of the strong?"
Thus as he cried the whistling North fell on with sudden gale
And drave the seas up toward the stars, and smote aback the sail;
Then break the oars, the bows fall off, and beam on in the trough
She lieth, and the sea comes on a mountain huge and rough.
These hang upon the topmost wave, and those may well discern
The sea's ground mid the gaping whirl: with sand the surges churn.
Three keels the South wind cast away on hidden reefs that lie
Midmost the sea, the Altars called by men of Italy,
A huge back thrusting through the tide: three others from the deep110
The East toward straits, and swallowing sands did miserably sweep,
And dashed them on the shoals, and heaped the sand around in ring:
And one, a keel the Lycians manned, with him, the trusty King
Orontes, in Æneas' sight a toppling wave o'erhung,
And smote the poop, and headlong rolled, adown the helmsman flung;
Then thrice about the driving flood hath hurled her as she lay,
The hurrying eddy swept above and swallowed her from day:
And lo! things swimming here and there, scant in the unmeasured seas,
The arms of men, and painted boards, and Trojan treasuries.
And now Ilioneus' stout ship, her that Achates leal120
And Abas ferried o'er the main, and old Aletes' keel
The storm hath overcome; and all must drink the baneful stream
Through opening leaky sides of them that gape at every seam.
But meanwhile Neptune, sorely moved, hath felt the storm let go,
And all the turmoil of the main with murmur great enow;
The deep upheaved from all abodes the lowest that there be:
So forth he put his placid face o'er topmost of the sea,
And there he saw Æneas' ships o'er all the main besprent,
The Trojans beaten by the flood and ruin from heaven sent.
But Juno's guile and wrathful heart her brother knew full well:130
So East and West he called to him, and spake such words to tell:
"What mighty pride of race of yours hath hold upon your minds,
That earth and sea ye turmoil so without my will, O winds;
That such upheaval and so great ye dare without my will?
Whom I—But first it comes to hand the troubled flood to still:
For such-like fault henceforward though with nought so light ye pay.
Go get you gone, and look to it this to your king to say:
That ocean's realm and three-tined spear of dread are given by Fate
Not unto him but unto me? he holds the cliffs o'ergreat,
Thine houses, Eurus; in that hall I bid him then be bold,140
Thine Æolus, and lord it o'er his winds in barred hold."
So saying and swifter than his word he layed the troubled main,
And put to flight the gathered clouds, and brought the sun again;
And with him Triton fell to work, and fair Cymothoë,
And thrust the ships from spiky rocks; with triple spear wrought he
To lift, and opened swallowing sands, and laid the waves alow.
Then on light wheels o'er ocean's face soft gliding did he go.
And, like as mid a people great full often will arise
Huge riot, and all the low-born herd to utter anger flies,
And sticks and stones are in the air, and fury arms doth find:150
Then, setting eyes perchance on one of weight for noble mind,
And noble deeds, they hush them then and stand with pricked-up ears,
And he with words becomes their lord, and smooth their anger wears;
—In such wise fell all clash of sea when that sea-father rose,
And looked abroad: who turned his steeds, and giving rein to those,
Flew forth in happy-gliding car through heaven's all-open way.
Æneas' sore forewearied host the shores that nearest lay
Stretch out for o'er the sea, and turn to Libyan land this while.
There goes a long firth of the sea, made haven by an isle,159
Against whose sides thrust out abroad each wave the main doth send
Is broken, and must cleave itself through hollow bights to wend:
Huge rocks on this hand and on that, twin horns of cliff, cast dread
On very heaven; and far and wide beneath each mighty head
Hushed are the harmless waters; lo, the flickering wood above
And wavering shadow cast adown by darksome hanging grove:
In face hereof a cave there is of rocks o'erhung, made meet
With benches of the living stone and springs of water sweet,
The house of Nymphs: a-riding there may way-worn ships be bold
To lie without the hawser's strain or anchor's hookèd hold.
That bight with seven of all his tale of ships Æneas gained,170
And there, by mighty love of land the Trojans sore constrained,
Leap off-board straight, and gain the gift of that so longed-for sand,
And lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand:
And first Achates smote alive the spark from out the flint,
And caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint
Of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke;
Then Ceres' body spoilt with sea, and Ceres' arms they took,
