Aeneid III.294-395
Aeneas runs into a few old friends.
Here a rumour of something unbelievable greeted our ears:
Priam’s son, Helenus, reigning over Greek cities,
having won the wife and kingdom of Pyrrhus, Aeacus’s1 scion,
Andromache, being given again to a husband of her race.
I was astounded, and my heart burned with an amazing passion
to speak to the man and learn of such events.
I walked from the harbour, leaving the fleet and the shore,
when, by chance, in a sacred grove near the city, by a false Simois2,
Andromache was making an annual offering, sad gifts
to Hector’s ashes, and calling his spirit to the tomb,
an empty mound of green turf and twin altars she had sanctified,
a place for tears. When she saw me approaching and recognised,
with amazement, Trojan weapons round her, she froze as she gazed,
terrified by these great wonders, and the heat left her limbs.
She half-fell and after a long while, scarcely able to, said:
“Are you a real person, a real messenger come here to me,
son of the goddess? Are you alive? Or if the kindly light has faded,
where then is Hector?” She spoke, and poured out her tears,
and filled the whole place with her weeping. Given her frenzy,
I barely replied with a few words, and, moved, I spoke disjointedly:
“Surely, I live, and lead a life full of extremes: don’t be unsure,
for you see truly. Ah! What fate has overtaken you, fallen
from so great a husband? Or has good fortune, worthy enough
for Hector’s Andromache, visited you again? Are you still
Pyrrhus’s wife?” She lowered her eyes and spoke quietly:
“O happy beyond all others was that virgin daughter
of Priam, commanded to die beside an enemy tomb
under Troy’s high walls, who never suffered fate’s lottery,
or, as a prisoner, reached her victorious master’s bed!
Carried over distant seas, my country set afire, I endured
the scorn of Achilles’s son, and his youthful arrogance,
giving birth as a slave: he, who then, pursuing Hermione,
Helen’s daughter, and a Spartan marriage, transferred me
to Helenus’s keeping, a servant to a servant.
But Orestes, inflamed by great love for his stolen bride,
and driven by the Furies for his crime3, caught him
unawares and killed him by his father’s altar.
At Pyrrhus’s death a part of the kingdom passed, by right,
to Helenus, who named the Chaonian fields, and all
Chaonia, after Chaon of Troy, and built a Pergamus,
and this fortress of Ilium, on the mountain ridge.
But what winds, what fates, set your course for you?
Or what god drives you, unknowingly, to our shores?
What of the child, Ascanius? Does he live and graze on air,
he whom Creusa bore to you in vanished Troy?
Has he any love still for his lost mother?
Have his father Aeneas and his uncle Hector roused
in him any of their ancient courage or virile spirit?”4
Weeping, she poured out these words and was starting
a long vain lament, when heroic Helenus, Priam’s son,
approached from the city with a large retinue
and recognised us as his own, and lead us, joyfully,
to the gates, and poured out tears freely at every word.
I walked on, and saw a little Troy, and a copy of the great
citadel, and a dry stream, named after the Xanthus,
and embraced the doorposts of a Scaean Gate.5
My Trojans enjoyed the friendly city with me no less.
The king received them in a broad colonnade:
they poured out cups of wine in the centre of a courtyard
and held out their dishes while food was served on gold.
Now day after day has gone by, and the breezes call
to the sails, and the canvas swells with a rising Southerly:
I go to Helenus, the seer, with these words and ask:
“Trojan-born, agent of the gods, you who know Apollo’s will,
the tripods, the laurels at Claros6, the stars, the language
of birds, and the omens of their wings in flight,
come, speak (since a favourable oracle told me
all my route, and all the gods in their divinity urged me
to seek Italy and explore the furthest lands:
only the Harpy, Celaeno, predicts fresh portents,
evil to tell of, and threatens bitter anger
and vile famine) first, what dangers shall I avoid?
Following what course can I overcome such troubles?”
Helenus, first sacrificing bullocks according to the ritual,
obtained the gods’ grace, then loosened the headband
from his holy brow, and led me, anxious at so much
divine power, with his own hand, to your threshold, Apollo,
and then the priest prophesied this, from the divine mouth:
“Son of the goddess, since the truth is clear, that you sail
the deep blessed by the higher powers (so the king of the gods
allots our fates and rolls the changes, so the order alters),
I’ll explain a few things of many in my words to you,
so you may travel foreign seas more safely, and can find
rest in an Italian haven: for the Fates forbid Helenus
to know further, and Saturnian Juno denies him speech.
Firstly, a long pathless path, by long coastlines, separates
you from that far-off Italy, whose neighbouring port
you intend to enter, unknowingly thinking it nearby.
Before you can build your city in a safe land,
you must bend the oar in Sicilian waters
and pass the levels of the Italian seas in your ships,
the infernal lakes, and Aeaean Circe’s island.
I’ll tell you of signs: keep them stored in your memory.
When, in your distress, you find a huge sow lying on the shore,
by the waters of a remote river, under the oak trees,
that has farrowed a litter of thirty young, a white sow
lying on the ground, with white piglets round her teats,
that place shall be your city, there’s true rest from your labours.
And do not dread that gnawing of tables in your future:
the fates will find a way, Apollo will be there at your call.”
Hic incredibilis rerum fama occupat auris,
Priamiden Helenum Graias regnare per urbis 295
coniugio Aeacidae Pyrrhi sceptrisque potitum,
et patrio Andromachen iterum cessisse marito.
obstipui, miroque incensum pectus amore
compellare virum et casus cognoscere tantos.
progredior portu classis et litora linquens, 300
sollemnis cum forte dapes et tristia dona
ante urbem in luco falsi Simoentis ad undam
libabat cineri Andromache manisque vocabat
Hectoreum ad tumulum, viridi quem caespite inanem
et geminas, causam lacrimis, sacraverat aras. 305
ut me conspexit venientem et Troia circum
arma amens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris
deriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit,
labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur:
'verane te facies, verus mihi nuntius adfers, 310
nate dea? vivisne? aut, si lux alma recessit,
Hector ubi est?' dixit, lacrimasque effudit et omnem
implevit clamore locum. vix pauca furenti
subicio et raris turbatus vocibus hisco:
'vivo equidem vitamque extrema per omnia duco; 315
ne dubita, nam vera vides.
heu! quis te casus deiectam coniuge tanto
excipit, aut quae digna satis fortuna revisit,
Hectoris Andromache? Pyrrhin conubia servas?'
deiecit vultum et demissa voce locuta est: 320
'o felix una ante alias Priameia virgo,
hostilem ad tumulum Troiae sub moenibus altis
iussa mori, quae sortitus non pertulit ullos
nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile!
nos patria incensa diversa per aequora vectae 325
stirpis Achilleae fastus iuvenemque superbum
servitio enixae tulimus; qui deinde secutus
Ledaeam Hermionen Lacedaemoniosque hymenaeos
me famulo famulamque Heleno transmisit habendam.
ast illum ereptae magno flammatus amore 330
coniugis et scelerum furiis agitatus Orestes
excipit incautum patriasque obtruncat ad aras.
morte Neoptolemi regnorum reddita cessit
pars Heleno, qui Chaonios cognomine campos
Chaoniamque omnem Troiano a Chaone dixit, 335
Pergamaque Iliacamque iugis hanc addidit arcem.
sed tibi qui cursum venti, quae fata dedere?
aut quisnam ignarum nostris deus appulit oris?
quid puer Ascanius? superatne et vescitur aura?
quem tibi iam Troia— 340
ecqua tamen puero est amissae cura parentis?
ecquid in antiquam virtutem animosque virilis
et pater Aeneas et avunculus excitat Hector?'
talia fundebat lacrimans longosque ciebat
incassum fletus, cum sese a moenibus heros 345
Priamides multis Helenus comitantibus adfert,
agnoscitque suos laetusque ad limina ducit,
et multum lacrimas verba inter singula fundit.
procedo et parvam Troiam simulataque magnis
Pergama et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum 350
agnosco, Scaeaeque amplector limina portae;
nec non et Teucri socia simul urbe fruuntur.
illos porticibus rex accipiebat in amplis:
aulai medio libabant pocula Bacchi
impositis auro dapibus, paterasque tenebant. 355
Iamque dies alterque dies processit, et aurae
vela vocant tumidoque inflatur carbasus Austro:
his vatem adgredior dictis ac talia quaeso:
'Troiugena, interpres divum, qui numina Phoebi,
qui tripodas Clarii et laurus, qui sidera sentis 360
et volucrum linguas et praepetis omina pennae,
fare age (namque omnis cursum mihi prospera dixit
religio, et cuncti suaserunt numine divi
Italiam petere et terras temptare repostas;
sola novum dictuque nefas Harpyia Celaeno 365
prodigium canit et tristis denuntiat iras
obscenamque famem), quae prima pericula vito?
quidve sequens tantos possim superare labores?'
hic Helenus caesis primum de more iuvencis
exorat pacem divum vittasque resolvit 370
sacrati capitis, meque ad tua limina, Phoebe,
ipse manu multo suspensum numine ducit,
atque haec deinde canit divino ex ore sacerdos:
'Nate dea (nam te maioribus ire per altum
auspiciis manifesta fides; sic fata deum rex 375
sortitur voluitque vices, is vertitur ordo),
pauca tibi e multis, quo tutior hospita lustres
aequora et Ausonio possis considere portu,
expediam dictis; prohibent nam cetera Parcae
scire Helenum farique vetat Saturnia Iuno. 380
principio Italiam, quam tu iam rere propinquam
vicinosque, ignare, paras invadere portus,
longa procul longis via dividit invia terris.
ante et Trinacria lentandus remus in unda
et salis Ausonii lustrandum navibus aequor 385
infernique lacus Aeaeaeque insula Circae,
quam tuta possis urbem componere terra.
signa tibi dicam, tu condita mente teneto:
cum tibi sollicito secreti ad fluminis undam
litoreis ingens inventa sub ilicibus sus 390
triginta capitum fetus enixa iacebit,
alba solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati,
is locus urbis erit, requies ea certa laborum.
nec tu mensarum morsus horresce futuros:
fata viam invenient aderitque vocatus Apollo.’ 395
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Achilles’ father’s father, and Pyrrhus’s great-grandfather.
A river at Troy, which here has been reproduced/rebuilt—as my professor says, “precisely what Aeneas has been trying to do,” except the gods won’t let him. My professor also said that this section makes him think of the Las Vegas monument ripoffs.
Yes, that Orestes. The crime noted here is the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, who previously killed his father, Agamemnon, a story told in the Oresteia.
Quoth the professor: “Every time I read this, I have this extremely vivid image of Las Vegas.”
A Greek sanctuary containing a temple of Apollo.
Dang this choked me up a little:
"Or if the kindly light has faded, where then is Hector?” :'{
She spoke, and poured out her tears,and filled the whole place with her weeping.