Aeneid Book 3, lines 231 - 267

The Harpy’s prophecy

by Virgil

Aeneas tells the Carthaginian Queen Dido how, driven from Troy, he and his followers build a fleet, and, when the winter is over, set off to found a new city. The way is hard, and their wanderings last for years. There are abortive attempts to settle in Thrace and Crete: omens indicate that they are in the wrong place, but for a long time what the gods truly wish becomes no clearer. Finally, Troy’s gods reveal to Aeneas in a dream that the city will be in Italy. At last there seems to be certainty, but another sinister prophecy will complicate matters. Making landfall on an island, the Trojans help themselves to untended cattle without knowing that they belong to the Harpies, birds with women’s heads and murderous talons, who foul everything that they touch. In this extract, the Trojans think at first that they have driven the Harpies off.

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Instruimus mensas arisque reponimus ignem;
rursum ex diverso caeli caecisque latebris
turba sonans praedam pedibus circumvolat uncis,
polluit ore dapes. sociis tunc arma capessant
edico, et dira bellum cum gente gerendum.
haud secus ac iussi faciunt tectosque per herbam
disponunt ensis et scuta latentia condunt.
ergo ubi delapsae sonitum per curva dedere
litora, dat signum specula Misenus ab alta
aere cavo. invadunt socii et nova proelia temptant,
obscenas pelagi ferro foedare volucres.
sed neque vim plumis ullam nec vulnera tergo
accipiunt, celerique fuga sub sidera lapsae
semesam praedam et vestigia foeda relinquunt.
una in praecelsa consedit rupe Celaeno,
infelix vates, rumpitque hanc pectore vocem:
‘bellum etiam pro caede boum stratisque iuvencis,
Laomedontiadae, bellumne inferre paratis
et patrio Harpyias insontis pellere regno?
accipite ergo animis atque haec mea figite dicta,
quae Phoebo pater omnipotens, mihi Phoebus Apollo
praedixit, vobis Furiarum ego maxima pando.
Italiam cursu petitis ventisque vocatis:
ibitis Italiam portusque intrare licebit.
sed non ante datam cingetis moenibus urbem
quam vos dira fames nostraeque iniuria caedis
ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas.’
dixit, et in silvam pennis ablata refugit.
at sociis subita gelidus formidine sanguis
deriguit: cecidere animi, nec iam amplius armis,
sed votis precibusque iubent exposcere pacem,
sive deae seu sint dirae obscenaeque volucres.
et pater Anchises passis de litore palmis
numina magna vocat meritosque indicit honores:
‘di, prohibete minas; di, talem avertite casum
et placidi servate pios.’ tum litore funem
deripere excussosque iubet laxare rudentis.

We set up the tables and light fresh fire on the altars;
from the other part of the sky and their hidden lairs
again the noisy crowd circle the prey with taloned feet
and foul the food with their mouths. I call my men
to arms, to wage war with the horrid tribe.
They obey at once and lay swords and shields
hidden in the grass. So when they swooped, screaming
along the curving shore, Misenus gave the signal
from a high lookout on a bronze horn.
My men set to, and try by a strange warfare
to maim the foul seabirds with steel.
But their feathers took no harm from the attack, their
backs took no wounds, and quickly soaring to the sky
they leave behind their half-eaten prey and foul traces.
One of them, Celaeno, alighted on a high rock,
a prophet of doom, and spat out these words:
“war, then, you bring us for our slaughtered cattle,
and butchered calves, Trojans, war, prepared to drive
the innocent Harpies from our fatherland?
Listen well and remember these words, given by
the mighty Father to Apollo, and by Apollo to me,
that I, mightiest of the Furies, now reveal to you.
You have summoned the winds and head for Italy: to Italy
you shall go and be granted landfall. But you will not
wall in your promised city before dire hunger and
the wrong done by your bloody attack on us
makes you eat your tables, and gnaw them with
your jaws.” And, taking wing, she flew to the forest.
My men’s blood ran cold and froze with sudden fear:
their spirits fell, and they bade me seek peace,
no longer with weapons, but with vows and prayers,
be the Harpies goddesses or fell and horrid birds.
Father Anchises, stretching out his hands from
the shore invokes the great gods and offers the due
tributes: “ O Gods, frustrate these threats, avert such
disaster, peacefully save the righteous.” Then he orders
the cable loosed from the shore and the sheets shaken free.

`

More Poems by Virgil

  1. Omens for Princess Lavinia
  2. Anchises’s ghost invites Aeneas to visit the underworld
  3. Aeneas joins the fray
  4. Mercury’s journey to Carthage
  5. The death of Euryalus and Nisus
  6. The journey to Hades begins
  7. Rumour
  8. Jupiter’s prophecy
  9. Fire strikes Aeneas’s fleet
  10. Hector visits Aeneas in a dream
  11. The infant Camilla
  12. Virgil predicts a forthcoming birth and a new golden age
  13. Aeneas is wounded
  14. Palinurus the helmsman is lost
  15. Aeneas and Dido meet
  16. More from Virgil’s farming Utopia
  17. Aeneas learns the way to the underworld
  18. A Fury rouses Turnus to war
  19. Sea-nymphs
  20. The death of Priam
  21. Storm at sea!
  22. The death of Dido.
  23. Mourning for Pallas
  24. Catastrophe for Rome?
  25. Turnus at bay
  26. The death of Pallas
  27. Aeneas finds Dido among the shades
  28. Vulcan’s forge
  29. Aeneas’s ships are transformed
  30. Aeneas rescues his Father Anchises
  31. Aeneas saves his son and father, but at a cost
  32. New allies for Aeneas
  33. Rites for the allies’ dead
  34. Aeneas’s oath
  35. Dido and Aeneas: Hell hath no fury …
  36. Aeneas prepares to tell Dido his story
  37. The Trojans reach Carthage
  38. Aeneas arrives in Italy
  39. Aeneas’s vision of Augustus
  40. The portals of sleep
  41. Laocoon warns against the Trojan horse
  42. Aeneas prepares for a hopeless fight
  43. Love is the same for all
  44. The Trojan horse opens
  45. How Aeneas will know the site of his city
  46. Turnus is lured away from battle
  47. Souls awaiting punishment in Tartarus, and the crimes that brought them there.
  48. The Trojans prepare to set sail from Carthage
  49. Juno is reconciled
  50. Virgil begins the Georgics
  51. King Mezentius meets his match
  52. Dido’s release
  53. The Syrian hostess
  54. Aeneas sees Marcellus, Augustus’s tragic heir
  55. Dido and Aeneas: royal hunt and royal affair
  56. Aeneas tours the site of Rome
  57. Virgil’s poetic temple to Caesar
  58. Signs of bad weather
  59. In King Latinus’s hall
  60. Juno’s anger
  61. Into battle
  62. Help for Father Aeneas from Father Tiber
  63. The natural history of bees
  64. Laocoon and the snakes
  65. Aeneas reaches the Elysian Fields
  66. Cassandra is taken
  67. King Latinus grants the Trojans’ request
  68. The Trojan Horse enters the city
  69. Turnus the wolf
  70. Charon, the ferryman
  71. Aristaeus’s bees
  72. Dido falls in love
  73. The Fury Allecto blows the alarm
  74. The farmer’s happy lot
  75. Dido’s story
  76. Aeneas comes to the Hell of Tartarus
  77. Juno throws open the gates of war
  78. The Aeneid begins
  79. The farmer’s starry calendar
  80. Virgil’s perils on the sea
  81. What is this wooden horse?
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