441Macareus had finished. 441And Aeneas' nurse, laid in an urn within a marble tomb, had a short epitaph: HERE THE FOSTER-SON OF FAMED DEVOTION CREMATED ME, CAIETA, SNATCHED FROM THE ARGIVE FIRE, WITH THE FIRE THAT WAS MY DUE. 445The cable tied to the grassy bank is loosed, and they leave far behind the treachery and the house of the ill-famed goddess, and make for the groves where the Tiber, clouded with shade, bursts into the sea with its yellow sand; 449and he gains the house and the daughter of Latinus, son of Faunus, yet not without war: war is undertaken with a fierce nation, and Turnus rages for his promised bride.
452All Etruria clashes with Latium, and for long a hard-won victory is sought with anxious arms. 454Each side increases its strength with foreign might, and many guard the Rutulians, many the Trojan camp. 456Nor had Aeneas gone to the walls of Evander in vain, but Venulus had gone in vain to the city of exiled Diomedes: he had indeed founded mighty walls under Iapygian Daunus and held lands as his dowry. 460But after Venulus had carried out Turnus' instructions and asked for help, the Aetolian hero pleads his lack of forces: he did not wish to commit the peoples of his father-in-law to battle, nor did he have any men of his own race to arm; 'and so that you do not think this an invention, though bitter grief be renewed by the reminder, I will endure to tell it all the same.
466After lofty Ilium was burned and Pergamum fed the Danaan flames, and the Narycian hero, by snatching a virgin from the virgin goddess, spread to all the punishment which he alone deserved, we are scattered and, snatched by winds over hostile seas, we Danaans endure lightning, night, rains, the wrath of sky and sea, and Caphereus, the crown of our disaster. 473Not to delay by recounting our sad misfortunes in order, Greece could then have seemed pitiable even to Priam. 475Yet the care of armed Minerva saved me and snatched me from the waves; but again I am driven from my native fields, and kindly Venus, mindful of her old wound, exacts punishment, and I endured such toils over the deep seas, such in battles on land, that I often called those happy whom the common storm and cruel Caphereus drowned in the waters, and I wished I had been one of them.
483My comrades, having suffered the worst in war and on the sea, lose heart and beg an end to their wandering; but Acmon, fiery by nature, and then indeed embittered by disasters: "What is left, men, that our endurance would now refuse to bear?" 487he said; 487"What more has Cytherea that she can do (suppose she wants to)? 488For while worse is feared, there is room for wounds: but when one's lot is the worst of things, fear lies underfoot, and the height of misfortune is free from care. 491Let her hear it herself, and let her hate, as she does, all the men under Diomedes; yet we all scorn her hatred: great is the price we have paid for our great power!"
494With such words Pleuronian Acmon goads on Venus, already angry, and rouses up her wrath with his goads. 496His words please few: we, the greater number of his friends, rebuke Acmon; 497as he wishes to reply, his voice and the passage of his voice alike are made thin, and his hair turns into feathers, his new neck is covered with plumage, and his breast and back; his arms take on larger feathers, and his elbows curve into light wings. 502A great part of the foot takes over his toes, and his mouth stiffens, hardened with horn, and ends in a point. 504Lycus marvels at him, and Idas, and Nycteus with Rhexenor, Abas marvels at him: and while they marvel, they take on the same appearance, and the greater part of the band flies up and circles the oars on clapping wings.
508If you ask what the form of those doubtful birds is, though they are not swans, they are very like white swans. 510With difficulty indeed, as son-in-law, do I hold this place and the dry fields of Iapygian Daunus with the smallest part of my men.' 512So far the son of Oeneus. 512Venulus leaves the Calydonian realm and the Peucetian bays and the Messapian fields. 514In these he sees a cave, which, shady with dense woods and trickling with water among light reeds, goat-footed Pan now holds, but which nymphs once held. 517An Apulian shepherd frightened them away from that region, and at first moved them with sudden fear; soon, when their minds recovered and they despised the one pursuing them, they led their dances, moving their feet in time.
521The shepherd mocks them, and, imitating them with rustic leaping, added coarse abuse to obscene words, nor did his mouth fall silent before a tree enclosed his throat: for you can recognise his character from the tree and its juice; 525for the wild olive displays the mark of his tongue in its bitter berries: the harshness of his words passed into them.