Aeneas

With a sudden chill weakening every part of his body, Aeneas groans and, stretching both hands to the stars, cries out thus: "O thrice and four times blessed, whose lot it was to perish before the faces of their fathers under the high walls of Troy!"

Then AEneas' limbs with fear / were loosened, and he groaned and stretched his hands in prayer. / "Thrice, four times blest, who, in their fathers' face / fell by the walls of Ilion far away!"

One, that bore / the brave Orontes and his Lycian crew, / full in AEneas' sight a toppling wave o'erthrew. / Dashed from the tiller, down the pilot rolled. / Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, / then whelmed below.

Here with seven ships, the remnant of his band, / AEneas enters. Glad at length to greet / the welcome earth, the Trojans leap to land, / and lay their weary limbs still dripping on the sand.

While up the crag AEneas climbs, to gain / full prospect far and wide, and scan the distant main. / If aught of Phrygian biremes he discern / Antheus or Capys, tost upon the seas, / or arms of brave Caicus high astern.

All mourned, but good AEneas mourned the most, / and bitter tears for Amycus he shed, / Gyas, Cloanthus, bravest of his host, / Lycus, Orontes bold, all counted with the lost.

"O Thou, whose nod and awful bolts attest / o'er Gods and men thine everlasting reign, / wherein hath my AEneas so transgressed, / wherein his Trojans, thus to mourn their slain, / barred from the world, lest Italy they gain?"

"Firm are thy fates, sweet daughter; spare thy fears. / Thou yet shalt see Lavinium's walls arise, / and bear thy brave AEneas to the skies. / My purpose shifts not."

But good AEneas, pondering through the night / distracting thoughts and many an anxious care, / resolved, when daybreak brought the gladsome light, / to search the coast, and back sure tidings bear, / what land was this, what habitants were there, / if man or beast, for, far as the eye could rove, / a wilderness the region seemed, and bare.

"But who are ye, pray answer? on what quest / come ye? and whence and whither are ye bound?" / Her then AEneas, from his inmost breast / heaving a deep-drawn sigh, with labouring speech addressed: / "O Goddess, should I from the first unfold, / or could'st thou hear, the annals of our woe, / eve's star were shining, ere the tale were told."