Free The Aeneid by Robert Fagles Virgil, Bernard Knox

keep that Trojan king from Italy?
Ah but of course—the Fates bar my way.
And yet Minerva could burn the fleet to ash
and drown my Argive crews in the sea, and all for one,
one mad crime of a single man, Ajax, son of Oileus!
She hurled Jove’s all-consuming bolt from the clouds,
she shattered a fleet and whipped the swells with gales.
And then as he gasped his last in flames from his riven chest
she swept him up in a cyclone, impaled the man on a crag.
But I who walk in majesty, I the Queen of the Gods,
the sister and wife of Jove—I must wage a war,
year after year, on just one race of men!
Who will revere the power of Juno after this—
lay gifts on my altar, lift his hands in prayer?”
     
    With such anger seething inside her fiery heart
the goddess reached Aeolia, breeding-ground of storms,
their home swarming with raging gusts from the South.
Here in a vast cave King Aeolus rules the winds,
brawling to break free, howling in full gale force
as he chains them down in their dungeon, shackled fast.
They bluster in protest, roaring round their prison bars
with a mountain above them all, booming with their rage.
But high in his stronghold Aeolus wields his scepter,
soothing their passions, tempering their fury.
Should he fail, surely they’d blow the world away,
hurling the land and sea and deep sky through space.
Fearing this, the almighty Father banished the winds
to that black cavern, piled above them a mountain mass
and imposed on all a king empowered, by binding pact,
to rein them back on command or let them gallop free.
     
    Now Juno made this plea to the Lord of Winds:
“Aeolus, the Father of Gods and King of Men gave you
the power to calm the waves or rouse them with your gales.
A race I loathe is crossing the Tuscan sea, transporting
Troy to Italy, bearing their conquered household gods—
thrash your winds to fury, sink their warships, overwhelm them
or break them apart, scatter their crews, drown them all!
I happen to have some sea-nymphs, fourteen beauties,
Deiopea the finest of all by far . . .
I’ll join you in lasting marriage, call her yours
and for all her years to come she will live with you
and make you the proud father of handsome children.
Such service earns such gifts.”
Aeolus warmed
to Juno’s offer: “Yours is the task, my queen,
to explore your heart’s desires. Mine is the duty
to follow your commands. Yes, thanks to you
I rule this humble little kingdom of mine.
You won me the scepter, Jupiter’s favors too,
and a couch to lounge on, set at the gods’ feasts—
you made me Lord of the Stormwind, King of Cloudbursts.”
     
    With such thanks, swinging his spear around he strikes home
at the mountain’s hollow flank and out charge the winds
through the breach he’d made, like armies on attack
in a blasting whirlwind tearing through the earth.
Down they crash on the sea, the Eastwind, Southwind,
all as one with the Southwest’s squalls in hot pursuit,
heaving up from the ocean depths huge killer-breakers
rolling toward the beaches. The crews are shouting,
cables screeching—suddenly cloudbanks blotting out
the sky, the light of day from the Trojans’ sight
as pitch-black night comes brooding down on the sea
with thunder crashing pole to pole, bolt on bolt
blazing across the heavens—death, everywhere
men facing instant death.
At once Aeneas, limbs limp in the chill of fear,
groans and lifting both his palms toward the stars
cries out: “Three, four times blest, my comrades
lucky to die beneath the soaring walls of Troy—
before their parents’ eyes! If only I’d gone down
under your right hand—Diomedes, strongest Greek afield—
and poured out my life on the battlegrounds of Troy!
Where raging Hector lies, pierced by Achilles’ spear,
where mighty Sarpedon lies, where the Simois River
swallows down and churns beneath its tides so many
shields and helmets and corpses of the brave!”
Flinging cries
as a screaming gust of the Northwind pounds against his sail,
raising waves