Book 14
from him. It has the tartness of his tongue.
441
When the ambassadors returned and told
527
their tale about Aetolian arms refused,
the bold Rutulians carried on the war
without those forces, and much blood was shed.
Then Turnus with a greedy torch drew near
the Trojan fleet, well built of close-knit pine.
What had escaped the waves, now feared the flame.
Soon Mulciber was burning pitch and wax
and other food of fire, up the high masts
he ran and fed upon the tight furled sails,
and even the benches in the curved hull smoked.
When the holy mother of the gods, recalling
how those same pines were felled on Ida's crest,
filled the wind with a sound of cymbals clashed
and trill of boxwood flutes. Borne through light air
by her famed lion yoke, she came and said,
“In vain you cast the fire with impious hand,
Turnus, for I will save this burning fleet.
I will not let the greedy flame consume
trees that were part and members of my grove.”
It thundered while she spoke, and heavy clouds,
following the thunder, brought a storm
of bounding hail. The Astraean brothers filled
both air and swollen waters with their rage
and rushed to battle. With the aid of one
of them the kindly mother broke the ropes
which held the Phrygian ships, and, drawing all
prow foremost, plunged them underneath the wave.
Softening quickly in the waters quiet depth,
their wood was changed to flesh, the curving prows
were metamorphosed into human heads,
blades of the oars made feet, the looms were changed
to swimming legs, the sides turned human flanks,
each keel below the middle of a ship
transformed became a spine, the cordage changed
to soft hair, and the sail yards changed to arms.
The azure color of the ships remained.
As sea-nymphs in the water they began
to agitate with virgin sports the waves,
