Book 3
with blameless rite, to Juno, Argive Queen.
521
No tarrying now, but after sacrifice
548
we twirled the sailyards and shook out all sail,
leaving the cities of the sons of Greece
and that distrusted land. Tarentum's bay
soon smiled before us, town of Hercules,
if fame be true; opposing it uptowers
Lacinia's headland unto Juno dear,
the heights of Caulon, and that sailors' bane,
ship-shattering Scylaceum. Thence half seen,
trinacrian Aetna cleaves th' horizon line;
we hear from far the crash of shouting seas,
where lifted billows leap the tide-swept sand.
Father Anchises cried: “'T is none but she—
Charybdis! Helenus this reef foretold,
and rocks of dreadful name. O, fly, my men!
Rise like one man with long, strong sweep of oars!”
Not unobedient they! First Palinure
veered to the leftward wave the willing keel,
and sails and oars together leftward strove.
We shot to skyward on the arching surge,
then, as she sank, dropped deeper than the grave;
thrice bellowed the vast cliffs from vaulted wall;
thrice saw we spouted foam and showers of stars.
After these things both wind and sun did fail;
and weary, worn, not witting of our way,
we drifted shoreward to the Cyclops' land.
A spreading bay is there, impregnable
570
to all invading storms; and Aetna's throat
with roar of frightful ruin thunders nigh.
Now to the realm of light it lifts a cloud
of pitch-black, whirling smoke, and fiery dust,
shooting out globes of flame, with monster tongues
that lick the stars; now huge crags of itself,
out of the bowels of the mountain torn,
its maw disgorges, while the molten rock
rolls screaming skyward; from the nether deep
the fathomless abyss makes ebb and flow.
Enceladus, his body lightning-scarred,
lies prisoned under all, so runs the tale:
