Book 3
curst greed of gold, may mortal hearts be driven?
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Soon as my shuddering ceased, I told this tale
of prodigies before the people's chiefs,
who sat in conclave with my kingly sire,
and bade them speak their reverend counsel forth.
All found one voice; to leave that land of sin,
where foul abomination had profaned
a stranger's right; and once more to resign
our fleet unto the tempest and the wave.
But fit and solemn funeral rites were paid
to Polydorus. A high mound we reared
of heaped-up earth, and to his honored shade
built a perpetual altar, sadly dressed
in cypress dark and purple pall of woe.
Our Ilian women wailed with loosened hair;
new milk was sprinkled from a foaming cup,
and from the shallow bowl fresh blood out-poured
upon the sacred ground. So in its tomb
we laid his ghost to rest, and loudly sang,
with prayer for peace, the long, the last farewell.
After these things, when first the friendly sea
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looked safe and fair, and o'er its tranquil plain
light-whispering breezes bade us launch away,
my men drew down our galleys to the brine,
thronging the shore. Soon out of port we ran,
and watched the hills and cities fading far.
There is a sacred island in mid-seas,
to fruitful Doris and to Neptune dear,
which grateful Phoebus, wielder of the bow,
the while it drifted loose from land to land,
chained firmly where the crags of Gyaros
and Myconos uptower, and bade it rest
immovable, in scorn of wind and wave.
Thither I sped; by this my weary ships
found undisturbed retreat and haven fair.
To land we came and saw with reverent eyes
Apollo's citadel. King Anius,
his people's king, and priest at Phoebus' fane,
came forth to meet us, wearing on his brow
the fillets and a holy laurel crown.
