Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/116

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
92
THE ÆNEID.

My comrades furl their sails, and stand,
Still rowing onward, for the land.
The port is hollowed in a bay,
Concealed by crags that, lashed with spray,
Confront the billows' roar:
On each side runs a rocky line
With arm extended, and the shrine
Moves backward from the shore.
First token of our fate, we see
Four snowwhite horses pasturing free:
'War is thy portance, stranger soil,
War,' cries my sire, 'the charger's toil,
'Tis war these grazers threat:
Yet may e'en such one day submit
To bear the yoke and champ the bit:
Aye, peace may bless us yet.'
Then martial Pallas we adore,
The first who welcomes us to shore,
And standing at the altars spread
A Phrygian covering o'er our head:
And mindful of the great command
By Helenus expressly given,
We burn the oblations of our hand
To Argive Juno, queen of heaven.

Our vows all paid, again to sea
We turn the vessels' head,
And leave the Grecian colony,
The land of doubt and dread.
Thy bay, Tarentum, next we view,
Herculean town, if fame say true:
Against it on the steep is seen
Lacinium's venerable queen,
And lofty Caulon's towers appear,
And Scylaceum, sailors' fear.