Aeneid (19 BC)
Aeolus said these things in reply: “Your job, oh queen, is to search out which you choose; the duty to me is to undertake your orders. You obtained for me whatever this is of a kingdom, you won over power and Jupiter’s favour, you grant me to recline at the banquet of the gods and you make me powerful over the storm clouds and tempests.”
When these things had been said, he turned his spear and struck the hollow mountain on the side: and the winds, just as an army having been made, were given a gate, where they rushed and blew over the lands with a whirlwind. They upheave the whole sea from the deepest seas, and together the East wind and South wind do this in crowded blasts, and they turn the vast winds to the shores: following this both a shout of men and a creaking ropes. Suddenly the clouds snatch both the sky and the day out from the Trojan’s eyes; dark night broods upon the sea. The skies roared and the upper air flashes with frequent fires and all things threaten instant death to the men. Immediately the limbs of Aeneas are loosened with chill; he groans and directing both palms to the stars he relates such things with his voice: “Oh both three and four times blessed, for whom it happened to meet death before the faces of their fathers beneath the lofty walls of Troy! Oh son of Tydeus, bravest of the Greek race! But I was not able to fall in death in the fields of Troy, and pour out this soul by your hand where cruel Hector lies, by Achilles’s spear, where the huge Sarpedon (lies), where the Simois rolls under its waves so many shields having been snatched up, and the helmets, and the brave bodies of men!”
Having uttered such words, a blast shrieking with the north wind strikes opposed the sail, and raises waves to the sky. The oars are broken, then the prow turns away and gives the side to the waves, a steep mountain of water follows in a heap. These (ships) hang on the crest of the waves; to these (ships) the gaping seas opens land between the waves, the tide rages with sand. The South wind snatches away three ships and whirls them onto rocks lying hidden (the Italians call these rocks the Altars, in the middle of the sea, a huge reef on the surface of the sea), the East wind drives three ships from the deep to the shallows and sandbanks, miserable to see, and dashes them against the shallows, and girds with a sand mound. One ship, which was carrying the Lycians and faithful Orontes, the huge sea from the summit strikes before his eyes themselves onto the stern from the high above: the captain is shaken and headlong is revolved onto his head; yet the waves whirl that one thrice in the same place, driving it around, and the rapid whirlpool swallows her up in the water. The swimming ones appear scattered in the vast whirlpool, men’s arms and planks, and Trojan treasure throughout the waves. Now the storm conquered Illoneus’s strong ship, now of brave Achates, both that by which Abas was carried, and that by which aged Aletes; all received the hostile flood, through the loose fastenings of the side, and they gape at the cracks.
Meanwhile, Neptune, seriously disturbed, realized the sea was being mixed with a loud rumble and that the storm had been sent forth and that the still waters had been poured back from the lowest shallows; and looking out from the deepest sea, he raised his calm head from the crest of a wave. He sees Aeneas’s fleet had been scattered on the whole sea, the Trojans having been overwhelmed by the waves, and the downfall of the sky. And neither did Juno’s anger and deceit escape the notice of her brother. He calls the East wind and West wind to him, thereupon he says such things:
“Has such great confidence of race hold you? Now without my divine power, winds, you dare to stir up the sky and land and raise such great masses? Whom I-- but it is better to calm the moved waves. Afterwards to me you will atone for the crimes by a not similar punishment. Hasten flight and say these things to your king: Not to that one has the control of the ocean and the cruel trident been given but by lot. That one holds immense rocks, your homes, East wind; let Aeolus toss himself in his court and reign in the closed prison of the winds.”
Thus he says and sooner than the word he quickly calms the swollen sea and puts to flight the clouds having been collected and leads the sun back. At the same time, Cymothoe and Triton, having striven, pushed the ship from the sharp crag; he himself lifts his trident and opens the vast sand bar and calms the sea and glides over the crests of the waves on light wheels. And just as when a riot arises in a great assembly and the inglorious crowd rages in mind; and now torches and rocks fly, rage supplies arms; then, if by chance they have seen some man weighty in loyalty and merits, they are silent and stand by with ears having been raised; that one rules their minds with his words and soothes their hearts: So thus the uproar of the sea falls, after the father, looking out on the sea and the open sky having been carried in, guides his horses and, flying, gives the reins to the following chariot.
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