Aeneid by Virgil- book 1

There was an ancient city, Carthage, held by colonists from Tyre, opposite Italy and the distant mouths of the Tiber, rich in wealth and most savage in their pursuits of war, which one place Juno is said to have loved more than all the lands, with Samos esteemed less. Here were her weapons; here was her chariot; even then the goddess both worked at and cherished [the idea] that this should be the kingdom for the nations- if only the fates allowed. But indeed she had heard of offsprings, descended from Trojan blood, who would one day overthrow the Tyrian citadels; from them would come a nation, ruling far and wide and proud in war, to bring destruction to Libia. Thus the fates decreed.

The daughter of Saturn, fearing that and mindful of the old war which she had waged first at Troy for her dear Greeks- and the causes of her anger and her fierce sorrows had not even yet faded from her mind: the judgement of Paris and the insult of her rejected beauty and the hated race and the honours of Ganymede, snatched from her, remained hidden away deep in her heart. Enflamed further by these she was keeping the Trojans, left by the Greeks and cruel Achilles, on all the sea, far from Latium, and they wandered for many years, driven by fate around all the seas. So great was the effort to found the Roman nation.

Scarcely out of the sight of the land of Sicily, they were happily spreading their sails into the deep and rushing over the foam of the sea with their bronze, when Juno, nursing the eternal wound in her breast, spoke thus to herself: ‘Am I, conquered, to abandon what I've begun and not be able to turn the King of the Trojans away from Italy? I am forbidden by the fates indeed! Was Pallas able to burn the Argive fleet and to drown them themselves in the sea because of the guilt and madness of one man, Ajax, son of Oileus? She herself hurled the swift fire of Jupiter from the clouds and scattered the ships and stirred up the sea with winds. She seized him in a whirlwind, breathing out flames from his pierced chest and impaled him on a sharp rock; but I, who walk on as queen of the Gods and both the wife and sister of Jupiter, have been waging war with one nation for so many years. And will anyone any more worship Juno’s power or, as a suppliant, place offerings on her altars?

Debating with herself on such things the goddess, with her heart inflamed, came to Aeolia, to the land of storms, places teeming with raging South winds. Here Aeolus, as king, controls in his vast cave the wrestling winds and roaring storms with his power and curve them with chains and imprisonment. They, angry, with a great moaning of the mountain, roar around the barriers; Aeolus sits on his lofty stronghold, holding his sceptre, and softens their spirits and calms their anger: if he did not do so, they would doubtless swiftly carry off the seas and lands and the highest heaven with them and sweep them away through the air. But the all-powerful father, fearing this, his them in dark caves and placed a mass and high mountains over them, and gave them a king who, by a fixed agreement, knew [how to] give the orders both to tighten and slacken the reins.

Then to him Juno, as a suppliant, used these words: ‘Aeolus, for the Father of gods and King of men gave you [the power] to both calm and rouse the waves with the winds, a race hostile to me is sailing the Tyrrhenian Sea, carrying Troy and their conquered household gods to Italy. Strike force into the winds and sink and overwhelm their boats or drive them apart and scatter their bodies over the sea. I have fourteen nymth of outstanding beauty, of which Deiopea, the loveliest in beauty, I will join in eternal marriage [with you] and will make her your own so that in return for such services she may spend the years with you and make you the father of beautiful offspring.’

In answer to this Aeolus said: ‘O queen, your task is to search out what you wish; it is right for me to carry out your order. You gained from me whatever is this kingdom, you gained the sceptre and Jupiter, you allow me to recline at the feasts of the gods and you made me powerful over the clouds and storms.’ When he had said this, he struck the side of the hollow mountain with his reversed spear and the winds, as if in battle formation, wherever there was an opening, rush out and blow through the lands with a storm.

They settle on the sea and together the East Wind and the West Wind and the African Wind, laden with storms, upheave all the seas from its deepest depth and they roll vast waves to the shores. And the shouting of men and the creaking of ropes follows. Suddenly the clouds snatch away both the sky and the daylight from the eyes of the Trojans; black night lies on the sea. The heavens thunder and sky flashes with frequent fires and everything threatens immediate death for the men.

At once Aeneas’ limbs are paralysed cold; he groans and, raising both his palms to the stars, he cries out in this voice: ‘O three times, four times blessed, whose lot it was to die under the tall walls of Troy before the eyes of your fathers! O bravest of the race of Greeks, son of Tydeus, was I not able to fall on the Trojan plain and pour out this spirit by your right hand, where fierce Hector lies by the weapon of Achilles, where huge Sarpedon lies, where the Simois rolls so many brave bodies, shields of men and helmets, snatched under its waters!

As he hurls such words out, a roaring squall from the North Wind strikes full on the sail and raises the waves to the stars. The oars are broken; then the prows turns around and offers its side to the waves. A sheer mountain of water follows in a mass. These hang from the top of a wave, for these the gaping water opens up land between the waves, the surge seethes with sand. The South Wind snatches three and hurls them onto hidden rocks; the East Wind drives three from the deep into the shallows and quicksands, pitiful to see, and dashes them on the shoals and surrounds them with a mound of sand.