And Tritons, swift to cleave the flood,
And Phorcus’ finny multitude.
Then Thetis comes, and Melite,
Nesæe, Spio, Panope,
Thalia and Cymodoce.
In good Æneas’ mind:
He bids them all their masts uprear,
And spread their sails to wind.
All at the word throughout the fleet
Stretch out the canvas on the sheet;
Now left, now right, alike they shift:
The gales are kind, the barks fly swift;
First Palinurus leads the way;
The rest observe him, and obey.
Now Night’s fleet coursers almost reach
The summit of the sky:
The weary oarsmen, all and each,
Along the benches lie,
When lo! false Sleep, on pinions light,
Drops down from heaven and cleaves the night;
Sad dreams to thee beneath his wings,
Unhappy Palinure, he brings,
Lights on the stern in Phorbas’ guise,
And thus with soft enticement plies:
‘See, Palinure, the vessels glide
E’en with the motion of the tide;
The breeze with steady current blows;
The very hour invites repose:
Rest your tired head, and for awhile
Those hard-tasked eyes of toil beguile;
Myself will take, for that short space,
The rudder, and supply your place.’
Scarce lifting from the heaven his eyes,
The wary Palinure replies:
‘What? I the dupe of Ocean’s wiles?
I trust this fiend that fawns and smiles?
Commit Æneas to the gale,
Who oft have proved how false its tale?’
Thus as he speaks, his hand and eye
Cleave to the rudder and the sky;
When lo! the god a slumberous bough
With dews of Styx and Lethe wet
Shakes gently o’er the watcher’s brow,
And seals those eyes, so firmly set.
Scarce had the loosening limbs given way,
The demon falls upon his prey,
And hurls him, dragging wood-work rent
And rudder in his prone descent,
With headlong ruin to the main,
Invoking friendly aid in vain:
Himself resumes his wings, and flies
Aloft into the buoyant skies.
Yet still the fleet by Neptune’s aid
Floats onward, safe and undismayed,
Till as they near the Sirens’ shore,
A perilous neighbourhood of yore
And white with mounded bones,
Where the hoarse sea with far-heard roar
Keeps washing on the stones,
The good chief feels the vessel sway,
No steersman to direct its way,
And takes himself the helm, and guides
Their progress through the darkling tides.
Full many a heart-fetched groan he heaved,
Thus of his hapless friend bereaved:
‘Ah fatal confidence, too prone
To trust in sea and sky!
A naked corpse on shores unknown
Shall Palinurus lie!’
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