The Aenid by Virgil

An excerpt from Book V

THE GAMES OF THE FLEET

Apart in the sea and over against the foaming beach, lies a rock that the swoln waves
beat and drown what time the [Pg 97][127-159]north-western gales of winter blot out
the stars; in calm it rises silent out of the placid water, flat-topped, and a haunt where
cormorants love best to take the sun. Here lord Aeneas set up a goal of leafy ilex, a mark
for the sailors to know whence to return, where to wheel their long course round. Then
they choose stations by lot, and on the sterns their captains glitter afar, beautiful in gold
and purple; the rest of the crews are crowned with poplar sprays, and their naked
shoulders glisten wet with oil. They sit down at the thwarts, and their arms are tense on
the oars; at full strain they wait the signal, while throbbing fear and heightened ambition
drain their riotous blood. Then, when the clear trumpet-note rang, all in a moment leap
forward from their line; the shouts of the sailors strike up to heaven, and the channels
are swept into foam by the arms as they swing backward. They cleave their furrows
together, and all the sea is torn asunder by oars and triple-pointed prows. Not with speed
so headlong do racing pairs whirl the chariots over the plain, as they rush streaming
from the barriers; not so do their charioteers shake the wavy reins loose over their team,
and hang forward on the whip. All the woodland rings with clapping and shouts of men
that cheer their favourites, and the sheltered beach eddies back their cries; the noise
buffets and re-echoes from the hills. Gyas shoots out in front of the noisy crowd, and
glides foremost along the water; whom Cloanthus follows next, rowing better, but held
back by his dragging weight of pine. After them, at equal distance, the Dragon and the
Centaur strive to win the foremost room; and now the Dragon has it, now the vast
Centaur outstrips and passes her; now they dart on both together, their stems in a line,
and their keels driving long furrows through the salt water-ways. And now they drew
nigh the rock, and were hard [Pg 98][160-193]on the goal; when Gyas as he led, winner
over half the flood, cries aloud to Menoetes, the ship's steersman: 'Whither away so far
to the right? This way direct her path; kiss the shore, and let the oarblade graze the
leftward reefs. Others may keep to deep water.' He spoke; but Menoetes, fearing blind
rocks, turns the bow away towards the open sea. 'Whither wanderest thou away? to the
rocks, Menoetes!' again shouts Gyas to bring him back; and lo! glancing round he sees
Cloanthus passing up behind and keeping nearer. Between Gyas' ship and the echoing
crags he scrapes through inside on his left, flashes past his leader, and leaving the goal
behind is in safe water. Then indeed grief burned fierce through his strong frame, and
tears sprung out on his cheeks; heedless of his own dignity and his crew's safety, he
flings the too cautious Menoetes sheer into the sea from the high stern, himself succeeds
as guide and master of the helm, and cheers on his men, and turns his tiller in to shore.
But Menoetes, when at last he rose struggling from the bottom, heavy with advancing
years and wet in his dripping clothes, makes for the top of the crag, and sits down on a
dry rock. The Teucrians laughed out as he fell and as he swam, and laugh to see him
spitting the salt water from his chest. At this a joyful hope kindled in the two behind,
Sergestus and Mnestheus, of catching up Gyas' wavering course. Sergestus slips forward
as he nears the rock, yet not all in front, nor leading with his length of keel; part is in
front, part pressed by the Dragon's jealous prow. But striding amidships between his
comrades, Mnestheus cheers them on: 'Now, now swing back, oarsmen who were
Hector's comrades, whom I chose to follow me in Troy's extremity; now put forth the
might and courage you showed in Gaetulian quicksands, amid Ionian seas and Malea's
chasing waves. Not the first [Pg 99][194-227]place do I now seek for Mnestheus, nor
strive for victory; though ah!—yet let them win, O Neptune, to whom thou givest it. But
the shame of coming in last! Win but this, fellow-citizens, and avert that disaster!' His
men bend forward, straining every muscle; the brasswork of the ship quivers to their
mighty strokes, and the ground runs from under her; limbs and parched lips shake with
their rapid panting, and sweat flows in streams all over them. Mere chance brought the
crew the glory they desired. For while Sergestus drives his prow furiously in towards the
rocks and comes up with too scanty room, alas! he caught on a rock that ran out; the reef
ground, the oars struck and shivered on the jagged teeth, and the bows crashed and hung.
The sailors leap up and hold her with loud cries, and get out iron-shod poles and sharp-
pointed boathooks, and pick up their broken oars out of the eddies. But Mnestheus,
rejoicing and flushed by his triumph, with oars fast-dipping and winds at his call, issues
into the shelving water and runs down the open sea. As a pigeon whose house and sweet
nestlings are in the rock's recesses, if suddenly startled from her cavern, wings her flight
over the fields and rushes frightened from her house with loud clapping pinions; then
gliding noiselessly through the air, slides on her liquid way and moves not her rapid
wings; so Mnestheus, so the Dragon under him swiftly cleaves the last space of sea, so
her own speed carries her flying on. And first Sergestus is left behind, struggling on the
steep rock and shoal water, and shouting in vain for help and learning to race with
broken oars. Next he catches up Gyas and the vast bulk of the Chimaera; she gives way,
without her steersman. And now on the very goal Cloanthus alone is left; him he pursues
and presses hard, straining all his strength. Then indeed the shouts redouble, as all
together eagerly cheer on the pursuer, and [Pg 100][228-264]the sky echoes their din.
These scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp, and would sell
life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes with belief in it. And haply
they had carried the prize with prows abreast, had not Cloanthus, stretching both his
open hands over the sea, poured forth prayers and called the gods to hear his vows:
'Gods who are sovereign on the sea, over whose waters I run, to your altars on this beach
will I bring a snow-white bull, my vow's glad penalty, and will cast his entrails into the
salt flood and pour liquid wine.' He spoke, and far beneath the flood maiden Panopea
heard him, with all Phorcus' choir of Nereids, and lord Portunus with his own mighty
hand pushed him on his way. The ship flies to land swifter than the wind or an arrow's
flight, and shoots into the deep harbour. Then the seed of Anchises, summoning all in
order, declares Cloanthus conqueror by herald's outcry, and dresses his brows in green
bay, and gives gifts to each crew, three bullocks of their choice, and wine, and a large
talent of silver to take away. For their captains he adds special honours; to the winner a
scarf wrought with gold, encircled by a double border of deep Meliboean purple; woven
in it is the kingly boy on leafy Ida, chasing swift stags with javelin and racing feet, keen
and as one panting; him Jove's swooping armour-bearer hath caught up from Ida in his
talons; his aged guardians stretch their hands vainly upwards, and the barking of hounds
rings fierce into the air. But to him who, next in merit, held the second place, he gives to
wear a corslet triple-woven with hooks of polished gold, stripped by his own conquering
hand from Demoleos under tall Troy by the swift Simoïs, an ornament and safeguard
among arms. Scarce could the straining shoulders of his servants Phegeus and Sagaris
carry its heavy folds; yet with it on, Demoleos at [Pg 101][265-302]full speed would
chase the scattered Trojans. The third prize he makes twin cauldrons of brass, and bowls
wrought in silver and rough with tracery. And now all moved away in the pride and
wealth of their prizes, their brows bound with scarlet ribbons; when, hardly torn loose by
all his art from the cruel rock, his oars lost, rowing feebly with a single tier, Sergestus
brought in his ship jeered at and unhonoured. Even as often a serpent caught on a
highway, if a brazen wheel hath gone aslant over him or a wayfarer left him half dead
and mangled with the blow of a heavy stone, wreathes himself slowly in vain effort to
escape, in part undaunted, his eyes ablaze and his hissing throat lifted high; in part the
disabling wound keeps him coiling in knots and twisting back on his own body; so the
ship kept rowing slowly on, yet hoists sail and under full sail glides into the harbour
mouth. Glad that the ship is saved and the crew brought back, Aeneas presents Sergestus
with his promised reward. A slave woman is given him not unskilled in Minerva's
labours, Pholoë the Cretan, with twin boys at her breast.