Aeneid III: A Translation in Alliterative Verse

Aeneid III: 121-171

A rumour went round that pushed from his pater's palace

The king had quit Crete, the beaches abandoned,

Farms free of foes, villages vacant.

We departed Delos and sped over the sea,

Naxus's Maenad-mountains, dark-green Donusa,

Oleanum and pearly Paros, Cyclades scattered over the seas,

We skim the straits churned with close-packed cays.

A salty salvo the striving sailors shout,

The comrades cheer: "Cruise to Crete and our kin!"

Behind blow the breezes at our backs

And finally onto the fabled shores we slide.

There breathless I build the barricade of our hoped-for home

Pergamen I picked it, and the people pleased with the placename,

I urged to hold dear their homes, and construct a citadel as cover.

Now scarcely the ships on shore dry were docked

The men making marriage and fixing fresh furrows

I dealt with decrees and dwellings, when suddenly a sickness

Sent from spoiled sky, limbs laid waste,

Plants and produce plagued in a toxic twelvemonth.

Sweet spirit spent or weakened wretches withered

Then Sirius sterile parched the pastures

Weeds wilted, and the failed fields forbid food.

Again to Apollo's Oracle at Ortygia

Anchises advised, to pray for pardon:

To find a finish for our fatigue, whence for our woe

A remedy we might reach, how to change our course.

Darkness descended, and sleep soothed all souls.

The sacred statues of the saints, and Phrygian Penates,

That through Troy's flames I ferried,

Seemed to stand before my face,

Sleeping in slumber, bathed in bright beams,

Which the full-moon flooded through the wide windows.

Thus they told, and soothed my stress with speech:

"What Apollo will announce to you, once delivered to Delos

He utters here and unbidden sends us lo! to you lintel

We from torched Troy followed you and your forces

Under you the swollen sea we sailed in ships

We will glorify to the galaxies your future family

And give sway to their state. Build big battlements

For the strong, seek not to shun exile's long labour

Your settlement must shift. Delos does not direct you

To this coast, nor to colonise Crete asks Apollo.

There lies a land the Hellenes hailed Hesperia.

An ancient area, in arms fierce, in fields fruitful.

Once owned by Oenotrians, now 'tis said their son

Identify it Italy after their chieftain's cognomen.

This will be our proper place, hence Dardanus derived,

And illustrious Iasius, the foremost of our folk.

Go, get up and this glad greeting to your eminent elder

Deliver, not to be doubted. Seek the Corythum coast

And Italian isles, for Iove the Dictaean domain denies you."