instinct of the women be right, after all? Were it not better to rest here in Sicily, than wander on again over the weary ocean in quest of this Western Land? He takes counsel with the Nestor of the fleet—the aged Nautes—to whom the goddess of wisdom has given an understanding spirit beyond his fellows. The old seaman's motto is one of the poet's noblest utterances[1]—
"Whate'er betides, he only cures
The stroke of fortune who endures."
He bids his chief take counsel, too, with Acestes. In the visions of the night the shade of his father Anchises once more appears to him, and gives the same advice as Nautes. It is settled that the women and the old men, and all that are weary and faint-hearted, shall be left behind in Sicily, while the picked band of good men and true sail on with their leader into the west; thus their reduced number of ships will yet suffice them.[2] The damaged galleys are hastily repaired, and the foundations of a new town are marked out for the Trojan settlers: it is to be called Acesta, in honour of
- ↑ "Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est."
- ↑ Virgil himself has no word of reproach for these weaker spirits, who thus preferred the rest of Sicily to the far-off hopes of Hesperia. But his impassioned pupil Dante is less merciful: he classes them in his "Purgatory" with the murmuring Israelites:—
"First they died, to whom the sea
Opened, or ever Jordan saw his heirs;
And they who with Æneas to the end
Endured not suffering, for their portion chose
Life without glory."
—Purg. xviii. (Cary.)
