Aeneas Lands in Italy

Abstract

Aeneas Lands in Italy David Ferry (bio) Aeneid VII, lines 1-45. Caiesta, Aeneas’s nurse, here where you died,Your name brings fame undying to the shores. And now, when faithful Aeneas had performedThe last funeral rites and raised for herA burial mound, and as soon as the high seasLowered themselves, and when they quieted down,He opens his sails, and the fleet departs from the port.The wind is steady as the night goes on,Nor does the shining moon withhold her favor;The moonlight gleams on the trembling water’s surface.They pass close by the shore where Circe, sheWho is the daughter of the Sun, in herSecluded grove sings on unceasingly,Her proud house lighting the darkness with lamps of cedarShedding their fragrance on the evening air,As her shuttle shrills upon the web she weaves.As they pass by they hear upon the shoreThe roaring of lions furious at their chainsAnd the raging of bristling boars and caged-up bearsAnd the ululating howls of enormous wolf-shapes.These are the men whom the cruel goddess CirceHad with her herbs and potions turned into beasts,Robbing them of their humanness with her witchcraft.But father Neptune, so that the Trojans wouldNot suffer the monstrous fate they would have sufferedHad they been brought into that harbor andHad they set foot upon that shore, saw to itThat they were gotten past those seething shallows,Keeping them safe. [End Page 334] Then, as the morning’s firstRays of light were making the waters redden,And high in the heavens in her roseate chariotAurora shone in the saffron light, the windDropped suddenly, all the breezes, and,Propelled only by oars, slowly they movedThemselves along through the marble quieted waters.As this was happening, Aeneas, lookingToward the shore from the sea, saw a great forest, andThe eddying waters of the beautiful river,The Tiber, bursting forth into the oceanAnd pouring its golden sands into the waves.All kinds of birds, the kinds that frequent a riverAnd its riverbanks, were flying above and around,And in the groves delighting the skies with their songs.Aeneas told his cohort to change their courseAnd turn their prows to land, and so they enteredThe tree-shaded river. O Muse Erato, help me. WhoWere the kings, who were they, what was it like,Back then when the strangers came to Ausonia’s shores?This is the story, the story of the battlesThat then took place, and the story of how it all started.Muse, come to the aid of your singer. The history IWill tell is of the terrible wars and thoseWhose great hearts’ courage urged them to their deaths,Etrurians and Hesperians in arms,In action on the fields. Here in this poemA greater ordering of things is told;I enter here upon this greater story. [End Page 335] David Ferry DAVID FERRY’s most recent book of poems is Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations (University of Chicago Press, 2012), National Book Award 2012. He has translated The Eclogues of Virgil, The Georgics of Virgil, The Odes of Horace, The Epistles of Horace, and Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse (all Farrar, Straus and giroux). Copyright © 2014 David Ferry