Here Fortune first alters, switching loyalties. While they,
with their various games, are paying due honours to the tomb,
Saturnian Juno sends Iris down from the sky to the Trojan fleet,
breathing out a breeze for her passage, thinking deeply
about her ancient grievance which is yet unsatisfied.
Iris, hurrying on her way along a rainbow’s thousand colours,
speeds swiftly down her track, a girl unseen.
She views the great crowd and scans the shore,
sees the harbour deserted and the ships abandoned.
But far away on the lonely sands the Trojan women
are weeping Anchises’s loss, and all, weeping, gaze
at the deep ocean. “Ah, what waves and seas are still left
for weary folk!” They are all of one voice. They pray for
a city: they tire of enduring suffering on the waves.
So Iris, not ignorant of mischief, darts among them,
setting aside the appearance and robes of a goddess:
becoming Beroe, the old wife of Tmarian1 Doryclus,
who had once had family, sons, and a famous name,
and as such moves among the Trojan mothers, saying:
“O wretched ones, whom Greek hands failed to drag
to death in the war beneath our native walls!
O unhappy people, what fate does Fortune reserve for you?
The seventh summer is on the turn since Troy’s destruction,
and we endure the crossing of every sea and shore, so many
inhospitable stones and stars, while we chase over the vast sea
after an Italy that flees from us, tossing upon the waves.
Here are the borders of our brother Eryx and our host Acestes:
what stops us building walls and granting our citizens a city?
O fatherland, O gods of our houses, rescued from the enemy
in vain, will no city now be called Troy? Shall I see
nowhere a Xanthus or a Simois, Hector’s rivers?
Come now, and burn these accursed ships with me.
For the ghost of Cassandra, the prophetess, seemed to hand me
burning torches in dream: ‘Seek Troy here: here is
your home,’ she said. Now is the time for deeds,
not delay, given such portents. See, four altars to Neptune:
the god himself lends us fire and the courage.”
So saying she first of all firmly seizes the dangerous flame
and, straining to lift it high, brandishes it and hurls it.
The minds of the Trojan women are startled, and their wits
stunned. Here, one of the crowd, Pyrgo, the eldest,
the royal nurse of so many of Priam’s sons, says:
“This is not Beroe, you women, this is no wife
of Rhoetitian2 Doryclus: look at the signs of divine beauty
and the burning eyes, the spirit she possesses,
her form, the sound of her voice, her footsteps as she moves.
Just now I myself left Beroe, sick and unhappy that she alone
was missing so important a rite and could not pay Anchises
the offerings due to him.” So she speaks. At first the women
gaze in uncertainty at the ships, with angry glances,
torn between a wretched yearning for the land
they have reached, and the kingdom fate calls them to,
when the goddess climbs the sky on soaring wings,
cutting a giant rainbow in her flight through the clouds.
Then truly amazed at the wonder, and driven by madness,
they cry out and some snatch fire from the innermost hearths,
others strip the altars and throw on leaves and twigs
and burning brands. Fire rages unchecked among
the benches and oars, and the hulls of painted pine.
Eumelus3 carries the news of the burning ships to Anchises’s tomb
and the ranks of the ampitheatre, and looking behind them
they themselves see dark ash floating upwards in a cloud.
Ascanius is first to turn his horse eagerly towards the troubled
encampment, as joyfully as he led his galloping troop,
and his breathless guardians cannot reign him back.
“What new madness is this?’ he cries. “What now, what do you
aim at, wretched women? You’re burning your own hopes,
not the enemy, nor a hostile Greek camp. See, I am
your Ascanius!” And he flung his empty helmet in front of his feet,
that he’d worn as he’d inspired his pretence of battle in play.
Aeneas hurries there too, and the Trojan companies.
But the women scatter in fear here and there along the shore,
and stealthily head for the woods and any cavernous rocks;
they hate what they’ve done and the light; with sober minds
they recognise their kin, and Juno is driven from their hearts.
But the roaring flames don’t lose their indomitable fury
just for that; the pitch is alight under the wet timbers,
slowly belching smoke, the keel is gradually burned,
and the pestilence sinks through a whole hull,
nor are heroic strength or floods of water any use.
Then virtuous Aeneas tears the clothes from his chest,
and calls on the gods for help, lifting his hands:
“All-powerful Jupiter, if you don’t hate the Trojans
to a man, if your former affection has regard
for human suffering, let the fleet escape the flames now,
Father, and save our slender Trojan hopes from ruin.
Or if I deserve this, send what is left of us to death with your
angry lightning-bolt, and overwhelm us with your hand.”
He had barely spoken when a dark storm with pouring rain
rages without check and the high hills and plains
quake with thunder; a murky downpour falls
from the whole sky, the blackest of heavy southerlies,
and the ships are brimming, the half-burnt timbers soaked,
until all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls
except four are saved from the pestilence.
Hinc primum Fortuna fidem mutata novavit.
dum variis tumulo referunt sollemnia ludis, 605
Irim de caelo misit Saturnia Iuno
Iliacam ad classem ventosque aspirat eunti,
multa movens necdum antiquum saturata dolorem.
illa viam celerans per mille coloribus arcum
nulli visa cito decurrit tramite virgo. 610
conspicit ingentem concursum et litora lustrat
desertosque videt portus classemque relictam.
at procul in sola secretae Troades acta
amissum Anchisen flebant, cunctaeque profundum
pontum aspectabant flentes. heu tot vada fessis 615
et tantum superesse maris, vox omnibus una;
urbem orant, taedet pelagi perferre laborem.
ergo inter medias sese haud ignara nocendi
conicit et faciemque deae vestemque reponit;
fit Beroe, Tmarii coniunx longaeva Dorycli, 620
cui genus et quondam nomen natique fuissent,
ac sic Dardanidum mediam se matribus infert.
'o miserae, quas non manus' inquit 'Achaica bello
traxerit ad letum patriae sub moenibus! o gens
infelix, cui te exitio Fortuna reservat? 625
septima post Troiae excidium iam vertitur aestas,
cum freta, cum terras omnis, tot inhospita saxa
sideraque emensae ferimur, dum per mare magnum
Italiam sequimur fugientem et volvimur undis.
hic Erycis fines fraterni atque hospes Acestes: 630
quis prohibet muros iacere et dare civibus urbem?
o patria et rapti nequiquam ex hoste penates,
nullane iam Troiae dicentur moenia? nusquam
Hectoreos amnis, Xanthum et Simoenta, videbo?
quin agite et mecum infaustas exurite puppis. 635
nam mihi Cassandrae per somnum vatis imago
ardentis dare visa faces: "hic quaerite Troiam;
hic domus est" inquit "vobis." iam tempus agi res,
nec tantis mora prodigiis. en quattuor arae
Neptuno; deus ipse faces animumque ministrat.' 640
haec memorans prima infensum vi corripit ignem
sublataque procul dextra conixa coruscat
et iacit. arrectae mentes stupefactaque corda
Iliadum. hic una e multis, quae maxima natu,
Pyrgo, tot Priami natorum regia nutrix: 645
'non Beroe vobis, non haec Rhoeteia, matres,
est Dorycli coniunx; divini signa decoris
ardentisque notate oculos, qui spiritus illi,
qui vultus vocisque sonus vel gressus eunti.
ipsa egomet dudum Beroen digressa reliqui 650
aegram, indignantem tali quod sola careret
munere nec meritos Anchisae inferret honores.'
haec effata.
at matres primo ancipites oculisque malignis
ambiguae spectare rates miserum inter amorem 655
praesentis terrae fatisque vocantia regna,
cum dea se paribus per caelum sustulit alis
ingentemque fuga secuit sub nubibus arcum.
tum vero attonitae monstris actaeque furore
conclamant, rapiuntque focis penetralibus ignem, 660
pars spoliant aras, frondem ac virgulta facesque
coniciunt. furit immissis Volcanus habenis
transtra per et remos et pictas abiete puppis.
Nuntius Anchisae ad tumulum cuneosque theatri
incensas perfert navis Eumelus, et ipsi 665
respiciunt atram in nimbo volitare favillam.
primus et Ascanius, cursus ut laetus equestris
ducebat, sic acer equo turbata petivit
castra, nec exanimes possunt retinere magistri.
'quis furor iste novus? quo nunc, quo tenditis' inquit 670
'heu miserae cives? non hostem inimicaque castra
Argiuum, vestras spes uritis. en, ego vester
Ascanius!'—galeam ante pedes proiecit inanem,
qua ludo indutus belli simulacra ciebat.
accelerat simul Aeneas, simul agmina Teucrum. 675
ast illae diversa metu per litora passim
diffugiunt, silvasque et sicubi concava furtim
saxa petunt; piget incepti lucisque, suosque
mutatae agnoscunt excussaque pectore Iuno est.
Sed non idcirco flamma atque incendia viris 680
indomitas posuere; udo sub robore vivit
stuppa vomens tardum fumum, lentusque carinas
est vapor et toto descendit corpore pestis,
nec vires heroum infusaque flumina prosunt.
tum pius Aeneas umeris abscindere vestem 685
auxilioque vocare deos et tendere palmas:
'Iuppiter omnipotens, si nondum exosus ad unum
Troianos, si quid pietas antiqua labores
respicit humanos, da flammam evadere classi
nunc, pater, et tenuis Teucrum res eripe leto. 690
vel tu, quod superest, infesto fulmine morti,
si mereor, demitte tuaque hic obrue dextra.'
vix haec ediderat cum effusis imbribus atra
tempestas sine more furit tonitruque tremescunt
ardua terrarum et campi; ruit aethere toto 695
turbidus imber aqua densisque nigerrimus Austris,
implenturque super puppes, semusta madescunt
robora, restinctus donec vapor omnis et omnes
quattuor amissis servatae a peste carinae.
Find the glossary for Aeneid Daily here; subscribe to receive daily posts.
of Tmarus, a mountain in Epirus
Rhoeteum was a promontory near Troy.
a Trojan