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(From Æneid, Book III) Translated by C. P. Cranch
AND next Tarentum’s bay, | |
| Named, if report be true, from Hercules, | |
| Is seen; and opposite lifts up her head | |
| The goddess of Lacinia; and the heights | |
| Appear of Caulon, and the dangerous rocks | 5 |
| Of Sylaceum. Then far off we see | |
| Trinacrian Ætna rising from the waves; | |
| And now we hear the ocean’s awful roar, | |
| The breakers dashing on the rocks, the moan | |
| Of broken voices on the shore. The deeps | 10 |
| Leap up, and sand is mixed with boiling foam. | |
| “Charybdis!” cries Anchises; “lo, the cliffs, | |
| The dreadful rocks that Helenus foretold! | |
| Save us,—bear off, my men! With equal stroke | |
| Bend on your oars!” No sooner said than done. | 15 |
| With groaning rudder Palinurus turns | |
| The prow to the left, and the whole cohort strain | |
| With oar and sail, and seek a southern course. | |
| The curving wave one moment lifts us up | |
| Skyward, then sinks us down as in the shades | 20 |
| Of death. Three times amid their hollow caves | |
| The cliffs resound; three times we saw the foam | |
| Dashed,—that the stars hung dripping wet with dew. | |
| Meanwhile, abandoned by the wind and sun, | |
| Weary, and ignorant of our course, we are thrown | 25 |
| Upon the Cyclops’ shore. | |
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