New pangs of mortal fear our minds assail;
We tug at ev’ry oar, and hoist up ev’ry sail,
And take th’ advantage of the friendly gale.
Forewarn’d by Helenus, we strive to shun
Charybdis’ gulf, nor dare to Scylla run.
An equal fate on either side appears:
We, tacking to the left, are free from fears;
For, from Pelorus’ point, the North arose,
And drove us back where swift Pantagias flows.
His rocky mouth we pass, and make our way
By Thapsus and Megara’s winding bay.
This passage Achaemenides had shown,
Tracing the course which he before had run.
“Right o’er against Plemmyrium’s wat’ry strand,
There lies an isle once call’d th’ Ortygian land.
Alpheus, as old fame reports, has found
From Greece a secret passage under ground,
By love to beauteous Arethusa led;
And, mingling here, they roll in the same sacred bed.
As Helenus enjoin’d, we next adore
Diana’s name, protectress of the shore.
With prosp’rous gales we pass the quiet sounds
Of still Elorus, and his fruitful bounds.
Then, doubling Cape Pachynus, we survey
The rocky shore extended to the sea.
The town of Camarine from far we see,
And fenny lake, undrain’d by fate’s decree.
In sight of the Geloan fields we pass,
And the large walls, where mighty Gela was;
Then Agragas, with lofty summits crown’d,
Long for the race of warlike steeds renown’d.
We pass’d Selinus, and the palmy land,
And widely shun the Lilybaean strand,
Unsafe, for secret rocks and moving sand.
At length on shore the weary fleet arriv’d,
Which Drepanum’s unhappy port receiv’d.
Here, after endless labors, often toss’d
By raging storms, and driv’n on ev’ry coast,
My dear, dear father, spent with age, I lost:
Ease of my cares, and solace of my pain,
Sav’d thro’ a thousand toils, but sav’d in vain
The prophet, who my future woes reveal’d,
Yet this, the greatest and the worst, conceal’d;
And dire Celaeno, whose foreboding skill
Denounc’d all else, was silent of the ill.
This my last labor was. Some friendly god
From thence convey’d us to your blest abode.”
Thus, to the list’ning queen, the royal guest
His wand’ring course and all his toils express’d;
And here concluding, he retir’d to rest.
