Now the cultivator of the swelling waters from Euboea had left behind Etna thrust into the jaws of the Giants, the Cyclops's fields that knew nothing of rakes or the use of the plow and owed nothing to yoked oxen, left behind Zancle too and the walls opposite Rhegium and the shipwrecking strait that's pressed between two shores and marks the boundary between the lands of Italy and Sicily. From there, swimming with strong strokes through the Tyrrhenian sea, he reached the grass-covered hills and the halls of Circe, daughter of the Sun, filled with all kinds of wild beasts.

As soon as he saw her and exchanged greetings, he said: "Goddess, have mercy on a god, I beg you! You alone can ease this love—if I seem worthy of it. Titan's daughter, no one knows better than I do how powerful herbs can be, since they're what changed me. But so you'll know the cause of my passion: on the Italian shore, facing Messina's walls, I saw Scylla. I'm ashamed to repeat the promises, prayers, sweet words I spoke—all rejected, all scorned. But you—if there's any power in spells, speak a spell from your sacred mouth, or if herbs work better when tested, use the tried strength of your potent herbs. Don't heal me or cure these wounds—I don't need an end to this. Just let her share some of my fire."

But Circe—no one has a nature more ready for such flames, whether the cause lies in herself or whether Venus, offended by her father's betrayal, makes her this way—answered with these words: "Better to pursue someone willing, wanting the same things, caught by equal desire. You deserved to be asked first—you could have been, certainly—and believe me, if you give any hope, you will be asked. Don't doubt it, have confidence in your looks. Look, though I'm a goddess, though I'm the daughter of the shining Sun, though I can do so much with spells and so much with herbs—I pray to be yours. Scorn the one who scorns you, return the feeling to the one who pursues you, and with one act avenge them both."

Glaucus answered her attempt: "Sooner will leaves grow in the sea and seaweed grow on mountaintops than my love for Scylla will change while she still lives."

The goddess was indignant. Since she couldn't hurt him—and wouldn't want to, being in love—she got angry at the one who'd been preferred to her. Offended by the rejection of her passion, she immediately ground up infamous plants with horrible juices, mixed Hecate's spells with the crushed herbs, put on her dark blue cloak, and walked through the crowd of fawning beasts from the middle of her hall. Heading for Rhegium opposite the rocks of Zancle, she stepped into the waves that seethe with currents. On them she placed her feet as on solid ground and ran across the surface of the water with dry soles.

There was a small pool curved into an arc—a peaceful retreat for Scylla, where she'd escape from the heat of sea and sky when the sun at its highest in the sky made the tiniest shadows. The goddess poisoned this pool ahead of time and polluted it with monstrous venoms. She sprinkled it with juices pressed from harmful roots and muttered an obscure spell of strange words three times nine times from her magic mouth.

Scylla came and had gone in waist-deep when she saw her groin fouled by barking monsters. At first she didn't believe they were parts of her own body. She fled, drove them away, was terrified of the savage mouths of the dogs—but what she ran from, she dragged along. Searching for her body, her thighs, legs, and feet, she found Cerberus-like jaws instead of those parts. She stood on raging dogs, and her truncated groin and jutting belly held up the backs of wild beasts.

Glaucus wept for his love, and he fled marriage with Circe, who'd used the power of her herbs too viciously. Scylla stayed in that place, and when the chance came, in her first act of hatred against Circe she robbed Odysseus of his companions. Soon she would have sunk the Trojan ships too, except that first she was transformed into a rock—a rock that still juts up. Sailors avoid that rock too.

---

Once the Trojan ships had rowed past Scylla and greedy Charybdis, and when they were almost at the Italian shore, a wind carried them back to the Libyan coast. There Dido of Sidon received Aeneas in her heart and home—a woman who wouldn't bear well the departure of her Trojan husband. On a pyre built to look like a sacred rite, she fell on a sword, deceived herself and deceived everyone else.

Fleeing once more from the new walls of that sandy land, he returned to faithful Acestes and the kingdom of Eryx, and there he performed sacrifices and honored the tomb of his father. He set sail in the ships that Juno's Iris had almost burned, left behind the realm of Aeolus's son and the lands smoking with hot sulfur, passed the Sirens' rocks—daughters of Achelous—and then, his ship robbed of its helmsman, he passed Inarime, Prochyta, and Pithecusae set on a barren hill, named for its inhabitants.

You see, the father of the gods once despised the fraud and lies of the Cercopes and the crimes of that deceitful race, so he changed those people into ugly animals—he wanted them to seem both different from humans and similar to them. He shrank their limbs, flattened their noses snub against their foreheads, furrowed their faces with old-age wrinkles, covered their whole bodies with tawny hair, and sent them to this place. But first he took away their use of words and the tongue born for terrible lies. He left them only able to complain with a hoarse screeching.

After passing these islands, Aeneas left the walls of Parthenope on his right, and on his left the tomb of Aeolus's son, the trumpeter, and the shores of Cumae with their marshy sedge. He entered the cave of the long-lived Sibyl and begged to visit his father's ghost through Avernus.

She kept her eyes fixed on the ground for a long time, then finally raised them, and filled with the god, said: "You're asking for great things, greatest of men, whose right hand has been proven by the sword and whose devotion has been proven by fire. But put aside your fear, Trojan. You'll gain what you seek. With me as your guide, you'll know the Elysian homes and the furthest realms of the world, and the dear ghost of your parent. No path is impassable to courage."

She spoke and showed him the golden bough gleaming in Juno's Avernian grove, and ordered him to tear it from its trunk. Aeneas obeyed, and he saw the terrifying wealth of Orcus, his ancestors, and the aged shade of great-souled Anchises. He learned the laws of those regions too, and what dangers he'd have to face in new wars.

Then, carrying his tired steps back along the upward path with the Cumaean guide, he eased his labor with conversation. While he traveled the dreadful journey through dim twilight, he said: "Whether you're a goddess present here or most dear to the gods, you'll always seem like a divinity to me, and I'll confess I owe my life to your gift—you who let me approach the places of death and, having seen them, escape the places of death. For these merits, when I'm lifted into the open air, I'll build you a temple and give you the honors of incense."

The prophetess looked back at him and, drawing deep sighs, said: "I'm not a goddess, and don't honor a human head with sacred incense, so you don't make a mistake in ignorance. Eternal life without end would have been given to me if my virginity had been open to Phoebus as my lover. While he hoped for this, while he wanted to corrupt me first with gifts, he said: 'Choose, Cumaean virgin, whatever you wish—you'll gain what you desire.' I pointed to a heap of gathered dust and foolishly asked to have as many birthdays as there were grains of dust in that pile. I forgot to ask for youth to go along with those years. Still, he would have given me those years and eternal youth too if I'd submitted to Venus. I rejected Phoebus's gift and remain unmarried. But now the happier time of life has turned its back, and feeble old age has come with trembling step—an old age I must endure for a long time. Already I've lived seven centuries, and still, to equal the number of grains of dust, I must see three hundred harvests more, three hundred vintages. A time will come when length of days will make me small from this great body, when my limbs consumed by age will be reduced to the tiniest weight. I won't seem to have been loved or to have pleased a god. Even Phoebus himself perhaps either won't recognize me or will deny he loved me. I'll be changed so much that I'll be visible to no one—but my voice will still be known. The fates will leave me my voice."

---

As the Sibyl spoke these things along the winding path, Trojan Aeneas emerged from the Stygian realms into the Euboean city, performed the proper sacrifices according to custom, and reached a shore that didn't yet have his nurse's name.

Here too, after long hardships, Macareus of Neritos had stopped—a companion of experienced Odysseus. He recognized Achaemenides, once abandoned on the cliffs of Etna, and was amazed to find him unexpectedly alive. "What luck or what god has saved you, Achaemenides?" he said. "Why does a barbarian ship carry a Greek? What land are you sailing for?"

To these questions, Achaemenides—no longer shaggy in clothing, now himself again with no garment stitched together from thorns—answered: "May I see Polyphemus again and those jaws dripping with human blood, if this ship and Ithaca are less dear to me than my home, if I honor Aeneas less than my own father! I could never be grateful enough, even if I gave everything. That I speak and breathe and look at the sky and stars of the sun—how could I be ungrateful and forgetful? He's the one who gave me life so my soul didn't enter the Cyclops's mouth, and so that when I leave the light of life now, I'll be laid in a tomb, at least, and certainly not buried in that belly.

"What do you think I felt then—unless fear took away all feeling and spirit—when I was left behind and watched you seek the deep seas? I wanted to shout, but I was afraid to betray myself to the enemy. Even Odysseus's shouting from your ship nearly harmed it. I saw when he ripped an enormous rock from the mountain and hurled it into the middle of the waves. I saw again when with the force of a catapult he threw massive boulders with his giant arm, and I was terrified—though I'd forgotten I wasn't on that ship—that the waves or wind would sink the vessel.

"When your flight rescued you from certain death, he groaned and walked all over Etna, groping at the woods with his hand, blind as he was, crashing into rocks, stretching his arms fouled with gore toward the sea and cursing the Greek race. He said: 'Oh, if only some chance would bring Odysseus back to me, or one of his companions on whom I could vent my rage, whose guts I could eat, whose living limbs I could tear with my hands, whose blood would flood my throat, whose crushed joints would tremble under my teeth—how little or light the loss of my sight would be!'

"This and more the savage creature said. Pale horror gripped me as I watched his face still wet with slaughter, his cruel hands, the empty socket where his eye had been, his limbs and beard caked with human blood. Death was before my eyes, but that was the least of my evils. I kept thinking he'd grab me any moment and plunge my guts into his own. My mind held the image of that time when I saw the bodies of two—no, three, four—of my companions dashed against the ground, while he himself lay over them like a shaggy lion and buried their guts and flesh and bones with their white marrow and half-alive limbs in his greedy belly. Trembling seized me. I stood there bloodless and miserable, watching him chew and vomit bloody scraps of food and chunks mixed with wine. I imagined such a fate being prepared for wretched me. For many days I hid, trembling at every sound, fearing death but wanting to die, fighting off hunger with acorns and grass mixed with leaves, alone, helpless, hopeless, abandoned to death and punishment. After a long time I saw this ship from far away, begged with gestures to escape, and ran to the shore. I moved you—and a Greek was taken aboard a Trojan ship!

"But you too, dearest of companions, tell your adventures and those of your leader and the crew entrusted with you to the sea."

Macareus told how Aeolus ruled the Tuscan deep—Aeolus, son of Hippotas, who kept the winds locked up. The Dulichian leader received them as a memorable gift, enclosed in an ox hide, and with a favorable breeze traveled for nine days and caught sight of the land he sought. But when the next dawn rose after the ninth day, his companions, overcome by envy and greed for plunder—thinking it was gold—loosened the bonds on the winds. The winds rushed them back through the same waters they'd just crossed, and the ship returned to the harbor of the Aeolian king.

"From there," he said, "we came to the ancient city of Laestrygonian Lamus. Antiphates ruled that land. I was sent to him with two companions. I barely escaped with one companion to safety through flight—the third of us stained the wicked mouth of the Laestrygonian with his own blood. Antiphates pursued us as we fled and roused his troops. They gathered and threw rocks and timbers, sinking men and sinking ships. One ship escaped, though—the one that carried us and Odysseus himself. Grieving for the loss of so many companions and complaining bitterly, we glided to those lands you can see from far off here. Believe me, that island is best seen from far away! And you, most just of the Trojans, son of a goddess—now that the war is over, you shouldn't be called an enemy, Aeneas—I warn you: flee Circe's shores!

"We too moored our ship on Circe's shore, and remembering Antiphates and the savage Cyclops, we refused to go. But we drew lots to decide who'd enter the unknown house. The lot chose me, faithful Polites, Eurylochus, Elpenor who drank too much wine, and eighteen other companions, and sent us to Circe's walls.

"As soon as we reached them and stood on the threshold of her house, a thousand wolves mixed with bears and lionesses rushed at us and made us afraid. But none was to be feared, none would wound our bodies. In fact, they wagged their tails gently through the air and followed our steps, fawning on us, until servant women received us and led us through the halls with marble floors to their mistress. She sat in a beautiful chamber on a ceremonial throne, wearing a gleaming cloak covered over with a golden robe.

"Nereids and nymphs were with her—they don't pull wool with moving fingers or draw out trailing threads, but they sort out plants and separate scattered flowers into baskets and arrange herbs of various colors. She herself directs the work they do, she herself knows what use each leaf has, which herbs harmonize when mixed, and she carefully weighs and examines the sorted plants.

"When she saw us, she gave a greeting and received ours, spread her face in a smile, and gave good omens to our prayers. Without delay she ordered a mixture to be made—roasted barley grain, honey, the strength of wine with milk curdled in raisin wine, and she secretly added juices that would hide under the sweetness. We took the cups she offered from her sacred right hand. As soon as we'd drunk them down with thirsty, dry mouths, and the terrible goddess had touched the tops of our heads with her wand—I'm ashamed but I'll tell it—I began to bristle with stiff hairs, couldn't speak anymore, gave out a harsh grunt instead of words, and fell forward entirely face-first to the ground. I felt my mouth hardening into a broad snout, my neck swelling with muscles, and the same part of me that had just taken the cup now made tracks with it. Along with the others who'd suffered the same fate—drugs have such power!—I was shut in a pen. We saw that Eurylochus alone had kept his shape. He alone had avoided the offered cup. If he hadn't avoided it, I'd still be part of the bristly herd even now, and Odysseus would never have learned from him about such disaster and never have come to Circe as an avenger.

"The peacemaker from Cyllene had given him a white flower—the gods call it moly, and it's held by a black root. Protected by this and the warnings of heaven, he entered Circe's house. When he was invited to the treacherous cups and she tried to stroke his hair with her wand, he pushed her back and frightened the terrified woman with his drawn sword. Then trust and right hands were given, and received in her bed, he demanded the bodies of his companions as a wedding gift.

"We were sprinkled with the juices of better, unknown herbs, struck on the head with the reversed stroke of the wand, and words were spoken—words opposite to the earlier words. The more she chanted, the more we rose up from the ground. Our bristles fell off, the cleft that split our feet into two left, our shoulders returned and below our shoulders were our arms. Weeping, we embraced him who was weeping, clung to our leader's neck, and the first words we spoke were none other than those that showed our gratitude.

"We stayed there a full year. In that long time I saw much, heard much with my ears, including this tale that one of the four servant women prepared for those sacred rites secretly told me.

---

"While Circe lingered alone with my leader, that servant woman showed me a statue made of white marble set in a sacred shrine—a youthful figure bearing a woodpecker on its head, adorned with many garlands. I asked who he was and why he was worshipped in the sacred shrine and why he wore that bird. 'Listen, Macareus,' she said, 'and from this too learn what power my mistress has. Pay close attention to what I tell you.

"'Picus, Saturn's son, was king in the Italian lands, passionate about war horses useful in battle. His form was what you see here—you can look at his beauty yourself and approve the truth from this sculpted image. His spirit matched his form. He hadn't yet seen the games held every four years in Greek Elis. He'd turned the dryads born on Latin mountains to look at him, the water nymphs sought him—naiads from the Albula, from Numicus's waters, from the Anio's stream and the Almo, shortest in its course, from rushing Nar and shady Farfarus, and those who dwell in Scythian Diana's wooded pool and the neighboring lakes. But scorning all of them, he cherished only one nymph, who they say Venilia once bore to two-faced Janus on the Palatine hill.

"'When she'd first ripened to marriageable years, she was given to Picus of Laurentum, preferred above all others. She was rare indeed in beauty, but rarer in the art of singing—that's why she was called Canens. She used to move forests and rocks with her mouth, tame wild beasts, make long rivers pause, and hold back wandering birds.

"'While she was modulating songs with her womanly voice, Picus had left his house and gone out into the Laurentine fields to hunt the native boars. He pressed the back of a spirited horse and held two spears in his left hand, wearing a crimson cloak clasped with tawny gold.

"'The Sun's daughter had also come into those same woods to gather new herbs from the fertile hills. She'd left the fields named for her—Circean fields. As soon as she saw the young man hidden in the underbrush, she froze. The herbs she'd gathered fell from her hand, and flame seemed to wander through all her marrow. As soon as she collected her mind from the powerful heat and was about to confess what she desired, the speed of his horse and the soldiers surrounding him made it impossible for her to approach.

"'"You won't escape," she said, "even if you're carried off by the wind—if I still know myself, if all the power of herbs hasn't vanished, if my spells don't fail me."

"'She spoke and created the phantom of a boar with no real body, and ordered it to run past the king's eyes and seem to enter the dense grove where the forest was thickest and the place wasn't passable for a horse. Right away, Picus chased the shadow of his prey, ignorant of the trick, leaped quickly from his foaming horse's back, and wandered on foot through the deep forest following an empty hope.

"'She conceived prayers and spoke poisonous words, worshipped unknown gods with an unknown spell—the spell she usually used to blur the face of the snowy Moon and weave moisture-bearing clouds over her father's head. Now too, when the spell was chanted, the sky grew thick and the earth exhaled mists. His companions wandered on blind paths, and the king's guard was absent.

"'She'd gained the place and time. "By your eyes," she said, "which have captured mine, and by this beauty, most beautiful one, which makes me, a goddess, a suppliant to you—favor my fire and accept the Sun, who sees all things, as your father-in-law. Don't be harsh and scorn Titan's daughter Circe."

"'She'd spoken, but he fiercely rejected both her and her prayers. "Whoever you are," he said, "I'm not yours. Another holds me captive and may she hold me, I pray, through long ages. I won't violate our marriage bond with a foreign love as long as the fates preserve Janus's daughter Canens for me."

"'The Titan's daughter tried her pleas again and again in vain. "You won't get away with this," she said. "You won't be returned to Canens. You'll learn what a woman who loves, who's been wronged, who is a woman, can do—and Circe is loving and wronged and a woman!"

"'Then twice she turned to the west, twice to the east, touched the young man three times with her wand, spoke three spells. He ran, but he marveled that he was running faster than usual. He saw feathers on his body. Indignant at suddenly becoming a strange bird added to the Latin forests, he attacked the hard oak with his fierce beak and in anger gave wounds to the long branches. His feathers took on the purple color of his cloak. The golden brooch that had fastened his garment became plumage, and his neck was ringed with tawny gold. Nothing ancient remained to Picus except his name.

"'Meanwhile his companions had called for Picus many times through the fields in vain, and when he wasn't found anywhere, they discovered Circe—for by then she'd thinned the air and allowed the mists and breezes to be scattered by the sun. They pressed her with true accusations and demanded their king back, threatened force, and prepared to attack with savage weapons. She scattered harmful virus and the juices of poison, called on Night and the gods of Night and Erebus and Chaos, and prayed to Hecate with long howls.

"'The groves leaped from their place—amazing to tell—the ground groaned, nearby trees turned pale, the scattered grass was wet with bloody drops, stones seemed to give out harsh bellows, dogs barked, the earth crawled with black serpents, and the thin ghosts of the silent dead flitted about. The crowd, stunned by these portents, panicked. As they panicked, she touched their astonished faces with her poisonous wand. At its touch, the strange forms of various beasts came upon the young men. None kept his own shape.

"'The setting sun had scattered Tartessian shores, and Canens's eyes and spirit had waited in vain for her husband. Servants and people ran through all the forests carrying torches to meet him. It wasn't enough for the nymph to weep and tear her hair and beat her breast—though she did all these things—she rushed out and wandered mad through the Latin fields. Six nights and six returning suns saw her without sleep or food, going over ridges and through valleys wherever chance led her. The Tiber was the last to see her, exhausted by grief and journey, laying her body down on his long bank.

"'There, with tears, she poured out words modulated in thin sound by her own grief, sadly—just as the swan sometimes sings its funeral song when dying. Finally, melted by grief, her tender marrow wasted away and she gradually vanished into thin air. But her fame was marked by the place, which the old Camenae rightly named Canens after the nymph."

"'I saw and heard many such things during that long year. We grew sluggish and slow from inactivity, and we were ordered to enter the sea again, to set sail again. Circe had said the paths were uncertain, the voyage vast, and the dangers of the savage sea remained. I was terrified, I confess, and when I reached this shore, I stayed."

---

Macareus finished. Aeneas's nurse was buried in a marble urn on a tomb that bore a brief inscription: "Here Aeneas, pupil of noted devotion, cremated me, Caieta, snatched from Argolic fire, as he should have."

The rope was loosed from the grassy mound where it had been tied, and they left far behind the traps and the infamous house of the goddess. They sought the groves where the cloud-dark Tiber bursts into the sea with tawny sand. Aeneas gained the home and daughter of Latinus, son of Faunus, but not without war. He fought a war with a fierce people, and Turnus raged for his promised bride. All Etruria clashed with Latium, and for a long time a hard-won victory was sought with anxious arms. Each side increased its strength with foreign forces. Many defended the Rutulian camp, many the Trojan. Aeneas hadn't gone to Evander's walls in vain, but Venulus had gone in vain to the city of exiled Diomedes.

That hero had founded a great city under Iapygian Daunus and held lands given as dowry. But when Venulus delivered Turnus's orders and asked for help, the Aetolian hero made excuses about his forces. He didn't want to commit either his father-in-law's people to battle or to arm any men he had from his own race. "And so you don't think I'm making this up, though the reminder renews bitter grief, I'll endure recounting it. After lofty Troy was burned and the Pergamene towers had fed Greek flames, the Naryician hero—who because of a virgin raped from a virgin earned the punishment he deserved alone but shared it with everyone—we Greeks were scattered and dragged by hostile winds over unfriendly seas. We endured lightning, night, rains, the anger of sky and sea, and the peak disaster of Caphereus. So I won't drag on recounting sad events in order, Greece at that time could have seemed pitiable even to Priam.

"But Minerva's care for me as a warrior snatched me from the waves. Yet I was driven again from my ancestral fields, and kind Venus, remembering the old wound, demanded punishment. I endured such great hardships on the high seas, such great ones in land wars, that I often called blessed those whom the shared storm and harsh Caphereus drowned in the waters—and I wished I'd been one of them.

"'My companions, having suffered the worst in war and sea, gave up and begged for an end to our wandering. But Acmon, hot-tempered by nature and then made harsh by disasters too, said: "What's left that your patience would refuse to bear, men? What more could Venus do—suppose she wanted to? For while worse things are feared, there's room for prayers. But when fortune is at its worst, fear is under your feet and the summit of evils is safe. Let her hear this herself, let her hate all the men under Diomedes—as she does. We all scorn her hatred. Great power comes at no great cost to us."

"'With such words Acmon of Pleuron provoked Venus, stirred up her old anger. His words pleased few. Most of us, his friends, rebuked Acmon. As he tried to answer, his voice and the passage of his voice both grew thin. His hair turned to feathers, feathers covered his new neck, his chest and back. Larger feathers took his arms, his elbows curved into light wings. A large part of his foot was occupied by toes, and his mouth hardened with horn and ended in a sharp point. Lycus watched him in amazement, Idas watched, Rhexenor, Nycteus, Abas watched, and while they watched, they took on the same form. The larger number from our group flew up and circled the oars with beating wings. If you ask what form these sudden birds have—while they're not swans, they're very close to white swans.

"'I, the son-in-law, barely hold these lands and the dry fields of Iapygian Daunus with a tiny portion of my men."

So spoke the son of Oeneus. Venulus left Diomedes's Calydonian realm, the bays of Peucetia, and the Messapian fields. In them he saw caves hidden by thick forest and slender reeds—caves that the half-goat Pan now holds, though nymphs once held them. An Apulian shepherd from that region had frightened them and driven them away, stirring them first with sudden terror. But soon, when their minds returned and they scorned their pursuer, they began dancing in rhythm with moving feet. The shepherd mocked them and imitated their leaping with rustic bounds, adding crude abuse to obscene words. He didn't shut his mouth until a tree enclosed his throat—for he is a tree now, and you can recognize his character from its sap. The wild olive shows the mark of his tongue in its bitter berries. The harshness of his words passed into them.

---

When the ambassadors returned from there, bringing news that the Aetolian arms were denied to them, the Rutulians waged war without those forces. Much blood was given by both sides. Look—Turnus brought greedy torches against the pine-built ships, and the vessels that had survived the water now feared fire. Now Vulcan was burning the pitch and wax and other food for flames, and the fire traveled up through the tall mast to the sails, and the curved keel's benches were smoking. Then the holy mother of the gods, remembering that these pines had been cut from Mount Ida, filled the air with the clashing of cymbals and the sound of the blown boxwood flute. Carried through the light air on her tamed lions, she said: "Turnus, you're throwing useless fires with your sacrilegious hand. I'll snatch them away. I won't let the devouring fire burn parts and limbs of my groves."

Thunder crashed as the goddess spoke, and after the thunder came heavy hailstones falling with leaping rain. The brothers born of Astraeus suddenly stirred the air and the swelling sea into turmoil and went to war. The kind mother used the strength of one of them, broke the hempen cables of the Trojan fleet, and carried the ships headlong, plunging them beneath the middle of the sea. The wood softened and turned into bodies. The curved prows changed into the form of heads, the oars became swimming fingers and legs, the side that had been there before remained a side, and the keel set under the middle of the ships changed into a spine's use. The rigging became soft hair, the yardarms became arms, and the color remained sea-blue as before. The ones they'd feared before, they now play with in girlish games—sea nymphs born on hard mountains now dwell in the soft strait, and their origin doesn't touch them. Still, not forgetting how many dangers they'd often endured on the sea, they've often put their hands under tossed ships—unless one was carrying Greeks. Still remembering the Trojan disaster, they hate the Greeks. They saw the fragments of Odysseus's ship with happy faces and saw the ship of Alcinous stiffen into stone with happy faces.

There was hope that with the fleet transformed into sea nymphs, the Rutulian might give up the war out of fear of the portent. But he persisted. Each side had gods, and what equals the gods—they had courage. They no longer sought the dowry kingdoms or the scepter of their father-in-law or you, Lavinia, virgin, but victory. They waged war ashamed to lay it down. Finally Venus saw her son's victorious arms. Turnus fell. Ardea fell—called powerful while Turnus lived. After the barbarian fire destroyed it and the buildings lay hidden under warm ash, from the middle of the heap a bird flew up, recognized then for the first time, and beat the ashes with its beating wings. Its cry, its leanness, its pallor—everything that befits a captured city—even the name remained in it from the city, and Ardea herself mourns with her own feathers.

---

Now Aeneas's virtue had forced all the gods, even Juno herself, to end their old anger. The growing wealth of Iulus was well established, and the Cytherean hero was ripe for heaven. Venus had approached the gods and, her arms thrown around her father's neck, said: "Father, you've never been harsh to me at any time—now I hope you'll be most gentle. Grant some divinity, however small, to my Aeneas, excellent father—he who made you a grandfather from our blood. Just grant him something! It's enough that he's looked once upon the unlovable realm, that he's once gone through the Stygian rivers."

The gods nodded agreement, and the royal wife didn't keep her face unmoved but nodded with a peaceful expression. Then the father said: "You both deserve heaven's gift, both you who ask and he for whom you ask. Take what you desire, daughter."

He'd spoken. She rejoiced and thanked her father, and carried through the light air on yoked doves, she reached the Laurentine shore, where the Numicius, hidden by reeds, creeps with its river waters into the nearby sea. She ordered this river to wash away from Aeneas whatever was subject to death and carry it beneath the sea in a silent current. The horned river obeyed Venus's commands, purified and washed away with his waters whatever had been mortal in Aeneas. The best part remained in him.

His mother anointed his purified body with divine perfume, touched his mouth with ambrosia mixed with sweet nectar, and made him a god. The Roman people call him Indiges and have received him in a temple and at altars.

Then Alba, with its double name, came under Ascanius's rule, and the Latin state continued. Silvius succeeded him. From him came Latinus, who took the ancient name again along with the scepter. Famous Alba succeeded Latinus. Epytus came from him, and after him Capetus and Capys—but Capys came first. Tiberinus received the kingdom from them and, drowned in the Tuscan river's waters, gave his name to the stream. From him fierce Remulus and Acrota were born. Remulus, older in years, perished struck by a lightning-like blow—an imitator of lightning. His brother Acrota, more moderate than brave, handed the scepter to Aventinus, who lies on the same mountain where he reigned and gave the mountain its name. And now Proca held the summit power of the Palatine people.

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Under this king there was Pomona. None among the Latin hamadryads cultivated gardens more skillfully, none was more devoted to the fruit of trees—that's where she gets her name. She didn't love forests or rivers but the countryside and branches bearing happy fruit. Her right hand was heavy not with a javelin but with a curved sickle, with which she'd sometimes prune back excess growth and trim spreading branches, sometimes insert a graft in split bark and provide sap to a foreign nursling. She wouldn't let them feel thirst, but watered the curved fibers of the thirsty root with trickling streams.

This was her love, her passion. She had no desire for Venus at all. Yet fearing violence from country folk, she closed her orchards from inside and shut out and fled from male approaches. What didn't the Satyrs—the young crew fit for dancing—do, and the Pans with pine-wreathed horns, and Silvanus, always more youthful than his years, and the god who frightens off thieves with his sickle or his groin, to try to possess her? But Vertumnus surpassed even these in loving and was no more successful than they were.

How often, wearing the outfit of a tough harvester, did he carry grain in a basket and look like a real harvester! Often, wearing temples bound with fresh hay, he could have seemed to have just turned the cut grass. Often he carried a goad in his hard hand, so you'd swear he'd just unyoked exhausted oxen. Given a pruning knife, he was a pruner and trimmer of vines. Wearing a ladder, you'd think he was about to pick apples. With a sword, he was a soldier; with a fishing rod, a fisherman. In short, through many forms he often found a way in so he could capture the joy of seeing her beauty.

He even put on a painted headband around his temples, leaned on a staff, laid false gray hair at his temples, and pretended to be an old woman. He entered the cultivated gardens, admired the fruit, and said: "You're so much more powerful!" He gave a few kisses to the woman he praised—kisses a real old woman would never have given—sat down bent over on the turf, looking up at the branches weighed down by autumn's burden.

Across from him was an elm, beautiful with gleaming grapes. After he'd praised it along with the vine that partnered it, he said: "But if that trunk stood unmarried without the vine's shoot, it would have nothing but leaves to make it desirable. And this vine too, which is joined to it, rests on the elm. If it weren't married, it would lie bent down on the ground. But you're not touched by this tree's example, you flee from marriage and don't care to be joined. I wish you would! Helen wouldn't have been pursued by more suitors, nor she who stirred up the Lapith wars, nor the wife of too-slow Odysseus. Even now, though you flee and turn away from those who seek you, a thousand men desire you—demigods and gods and whatever divinities hold the Alban mountains.

"But if you're wise, if you want to marry well and listen to this old woman, who loves you more than all of them—more than you believe—reject common matches and choose Vertumnus as your marriage partner! Take me as a pledge for him too. He's not better known to himself than he is to me. He doesn't wander randomly through the whole world—he cultivates only these places. Unlike most suitors who love whatever they've just seen, you'll be his first and last passion, and he'll devote his years to you alone. Add that he's young, that he has beauty as a natural gift and shapes himself aptly into all forms, and whatever you order—though you order all things—he'll become. What's more, you both love the same things, and what fruit you cultivate, he's the first to have, and he holds your gifts in his happy hand!

"But now he doesn't desire fruit plucked from trees, or the herbs your garden feeds with gentle juices, or anything except you. Pity the one who burns, and believe that he himself, present in my mouth, is begging. Fear the avenging gods and the Idalian who hates hard hearts, and remember Rhamnusian anger! And so you'll fear more—for old age has taught me to know many things—I'll tell you a story most famous throughout all Cyprus, by which you could easily be bent and softened.

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"'Iphis, born of humble stock, had seen Anaxarete, descended from the noble blood of ancient Teucer. He'd seen her and absorbed heat through all his bones. After struggling a long time, when he couldn't conquer his madness with reason, he came as a suppliant to her threshold. Sometimes he confessed his wretched love to her nurse and begged her, for the hope of her nursling, not to be harsh toward him. Sometimes he flattered each of her many servants and sought their eager favor with anxious voice. Often he gave his words to be carried on flattering tablets. Sometimes he hung garlands wet with the dew of his tears on the doorposts, laid his soft side on the hard threshold, and cursed the cruel lock.

"'She was more savage than the sea rising when the Kids are setting, harder than iron that Noric fire smelts, and harder than rock that still clings to its living root. She scorned and mocked him, added arrogant words to her cruel deeds with savage pride, and robbed her lover even of hope.

"'Iphis, impatient, couldn't endure the torments of long pain, and before her doors he spoke these final words: "You win, Anaxarete, and you won't have to bear any more annoyance from me. Prepare your happy triumph and call for the paean, crown yourself with bright laurel! You win, and I die willingly. Come on, woman of iron, rejoice! Surely you'll be forced to praise something in my love, by which I'll please you, and you'll confess I deserve it. But remember that my care for you didn't leave before my life did, and I must lose both lights at once. The news of my death won't come to you as rumor. I myself—don't doubt it—will be there, present to be seen, so your cruel eyes can feast on my lifeless body. But you gods, if you see mortal deeds, remember me—my tongue can't pray for anything more—and make me spoken of in long ages. Add to my fame the time you've taken from my life!"

"'He spoke, and lifting his moist eyes and pale arms toward the doorposts often adorned with garlands, as he tied the noose's bonds to the top of the doors, he said: "Do these wreaths please you, cruel and wicked woman?" and thrust his head into the noose, but even then turned toward her. The unlucky burden hung with his crushed throat.

"'His feet's trembling movement seemed to knock at the door, commanding it to open, and when the door opened it revealed the deed. The servants cried out and lifted him in vain—his father had already died—and carried him to his mother's threshold. She received him in her lap, embraced the cold limbs of her son, and after she'd spoken the words of wretched parents and done the deeds of wretched mothers, she led the tearful funeral through the middle of the city and carried the pale limbs on a bier to be burned.

"'By chance the house where the tearful procession went was near the road, and the sound of mourning came to the ears of cruel Anaxarete, whom the avenging god was already driving. Still she was moved. "Let's see the pitiful funeral," she said, and she entered a lofty house with wide windows. She'd barely looked properly at Iphis laid on the bier when her eyes stiffened, the warm blood fled from her body as pallor spread over it. Trying to step backward, her feet stuck. Trying to turn her face away, she couldn't do that either. Gradually the stone that had long been in her hard heart took over her limbs.

"'And so you don't think this is made up—Salamis still preserves a statue in the image of the mistress, and it also has a temple in the name of Venus the Watcher. Remembering these things, my dear, put aside, I beg you, your slow pride and join yourself to your lover, nymph. So may spring frost not burn your budding fruits, nor swift winds shake off your blossoms!"

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When the god, suited to an old woman's form, had spoken these things in vain, he returned to youth and removed the old woman's props from himself. He appeared to her as when the Sun's most brilliant image has conquered the clouds that stood in its way and shines with nothing blocking it. He prepared to use force, but force wasn't needed. The nymph was captured by the god's beauty and felt mutual wounds.

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Next the unjust soldier Amulius ruled over Italian wealth, and old Numitor regained the kingdom he'd lost through his grandson's help. On the festival day of the Palilia, the city's walls were founded. Tatius and the Sabine fathers waged war, and Tarpeia, after opening a path to the citadel, paid with her life—a worthy punishment—crushed under heaped-up arms.

Then the men born in Cures, silent as wolves, held their voices in their mouths and attacked the bodies overcome by sleep, seeking the gates that Aeneas's son had closed with a strong bar. But Saturn's daughter herself had opened one and made no sound when she turned the hinge. Venus alone noticed that the gate's bolts had fallen and would have closed it—but the gods are never allowed to undo what gods have done.

Italian naiads held a place near Janus, a place dripping with a cold spring. Venus asked them for help. The nymphs didn't refuse the goddess's just request, and they opened the veins and streams of their fountain. But Janus's open mouth wasn't yet impassable, and water hadn't yet blocked the way. They put yellow sulfur under the fertile spring and set the hollow veins on fire with smoking bitumen. With these forces and others, vapor penetrated to the depths of the fountain. And you waters, who just now dared to rival Alpine cold—you don't yield to fire itself! The twin doorposts smoke with the spray of flames, and the gate promised in vain to the hardy Sabines was barred by the new fountain while the Roman soldier put on his arms.

Then after Romulus had offered battle first, the Roman ground was strewn with Sabine bodies and strewn with its own. The impious sword mixed a son-in-law's blood with his father-in-law's blood. But they decided it was better to end the war with peace rather than fight to the finish with steel, and Tatius joined the kingdom.

Tatius had died, and you, Romulus, were giving equal laws to both peoples. Mars, setting down his helmet, spoke these words to the father of gods and men: "The time has come, father, since the Roman state stands strong on a great foundation and doesn't depend on one protector, to pay the reward you promised to me and your worthy grandson—to take him from earth and place him in heaven. You once said to me when the council of gods was present—I remember and have kept your devoted words in my mindful heart—'One there will be whom you'll lift to the blue of heaven.' Let the full meaning of your words be confirmed."

The almighty nodded, hid the sky with dark clouds, and terrified the world with thunder and lightning. Mars sensed these as sure signs of the promised seizure. Leaning on his spear and fearless, he mounted his horses pressed down by the bloody yoke, cracked the whip to urge them on, and slid headlong through the air. He stopped on the summit of the wooded Palatine hill and took away Aeneas's son just as he was dispensing royal justice to his Roman people. His mortal body dissolved through the thin air like a lead ball shot from a broad sling usually melts away in the middle of the sky. A beautiful appearance took its place, one more worthy of high couches—the form of robed Quirinus.

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His wife was weeping as if she'd lost him, when royal Juno ordered Iris to descend along the curved rainbow and carry these commands to the widowed woman:

"O matron, supreme glory of both the Latin and Sabine race, most worthy to have been the wife of such a great man before and now of Quirinus, stop your tears. And if you care to see your husband, follow me to the grove that grows green on Quirinus's hill and shades the temple of Rome's king."

Iris obeyed and, gliding down to earth along her painted arc, addressed Hersilia with the commanded words. She, barely raising her eyes with modest expression, said: "O goddess—for it's not easy for me to say who you are, but it's clear you are a goddess—lead me, oh lead me and show me my husband's face! If only the fates would grant me to see it just once, I'll confess I've reached heaven!"

Without delay, she climbed Romulus's hill with the virgin daughter of Thaumas. There a star slid down from the sky and fell to earth. As Hersilia's hair blazed with light from it, she vanished into the air with the star. The founder of the Roman city received her in familiar hands and changed her former body and name together, calling her Hora. Now as a goddess she's joined to Quirinus.