The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book XIV (Fable. 4)

Æneas arrives at Caieta, in Italy. Achæmenides, an Ithacan, who is on board his ship, meets his former companion Macareus there; and relates to him his escape from being devoured by Polyphemus. Macareus afterwards tells him how Ulysses had received winds from Æolus in a hide, and by that means had a prosperous voyage; till, on the bag being opened by the sailors in their curiosity, the winds rushed out, and raised a storm that drove them back to Æolia, and afterwards upon the coast of the Læstrygons.

While the Sibyl was relating such things as these, during the steep ascent, the Trojan Æneas emerged from the Stygian abodes to the Eubœan city,15 and the sacrifice being performed, after the usual manner, he approached the shores that not yet bore the name of his nurse;16 here, too, Macareus of Neritos, the companion of the experienced Ulysses, had rested, after the prolonged weariness of his toils. He recognized Achæmenides, once deserted in the midst of the crags of Ætna; and astonished that, thus unexpectedly found again, he was yet alive, he said, “What chance, or what God, Achæmenides, preserves thee? why is a barbarian17 vessel carrying thee, a Greek? What land is sought by thy bark?”

No longer ragged in his clothing, but now his own master,18 and wearing clothes tacked together with no thorns, Achæmenides says, “Again may I behold Polyphemus, and those jaws streaming with human blood, if my home and Ithaca be more delightful to me than this bark; if I venerate Æneas any less than my own father. And, though I were to do everything possible, I could never be sufficiently grateful. ’Tis he that has caused that I speak, and breathe, and behold the heavens and the luminary of the sun; and can I be ungrateful, and forgetful of this? ’Tis through him that this life of mine did not fall into the jaws of the Cyclop; and though I were, even now, to leave the light of life, I should either be buried in a tomb, or, at least, not in that paunch of his. What were my feelings at that moment (unless, indeed, terror deprived me of all sense and feeling), when, left behind, I saw you making for the open sea? I wished to shout aloud, but I was fearful of betraying myself to the enemy; the shouts of Ulysses were very nearly causing19 the destruction of even your ship. I beheld him when, having torn up a mountain, he hurled the immense rock in the midst of the waves; again I beheld him hurling huge stones, with his giant arms, just as though impelled by the powers of the engine of war. And, forgetful that I was not in it, I was now struck with horror lest the waves or the stones might overwhelm the ship.

“But when your flight had saved you from a cruel death, he, indeed, roaring with rage, paced about all Ætna, and groped out the woods with his hands, and, deprived of his eye, stumbled against the rocks; and stretching out his arms, stained with gore, into the sea, he cursed the Grecian race, and he said, ‘Oh! that any accident would bring back Ulysses to me, or any one of his companions, against whom my anger might find vent, whose entrails I might devour, whose living limbs I might mangle with my right hand, whose blood might drench my throat, whose crushed members might quiver beneath my teeth: how insignificant, or how trifling, then, would be the loss of my sight, that has been taken from me!’ This, and more, he said in his rage. Ghastly horror took possession of me, as I beheld his features, streaming even yet with blood, and the ruthless hands, and the round space deprived of the eye, and his limbs, and his beard matted with human blood. Death was before my eyes, and yet that was the least of my woes. I imagined that20 now he was about to seize hold of me, and that now he was on the very point of swallowing my vitals within his own; in my mind was fixed the impress of that time when I beheld two bodies of my companions three or four times dashed against the ground. Throwing himself on the top of them, just like a shaggy lion, he stowed away their entrails, their flesh, their bones with the white marrow, and their quivering limbs, in his ravenous paunch. A trembling seized me; in my alarm I stood without blood in my features, as I beheld him both chewing and belching out his bloody banquet from his mouth, and vomiting pieces mingled with wine; and I fancied that such a doom was in readiness for wretched me.

“Concealing myself for many a day, and trembling at every sound, and both fearing death and yet desirous to die, satisfying hunger with acorns, and with grass mixed with leaves, alone, destitute, desponding, abandoned to death and destruction, after a length of time, I beheld a ship not far off; by signs I prayed for deliverance, and I ran down to the shore; I prevailed; and a Trojan ship received me, a Greek. Do thou too, dearest of my companions, relate thy adventures, and those of thy chief, and of the company, which, together with thee, entrusted themselves to the ocean.”

The other relates how that Æolus rules over the Etrurian seas; Æolus, the grandson of Hippotas, who confines the winds in their prison, which the Dulichean chief had received, shut up in a leather bag, a wondrous gift; how, with a favouring breeze, he had proceeded for nine days, and had beheld the land he was bound for; and how, when the first morning after the ninth had arrived, his companions, influenced by envy and a desire for booty, supposing it to be gold, had cut the fastenings of the winds; and how, through these, the ship had gone back along the waves through which it had just come, and had returned to the harbour of the Æolian king.

“Thence,” said he, “we came to the ancient city21 of Lamus, the Læstrygon. Antiphates was reigning in that land. I was sent to him, two in number accompanying me; and with difficulty was safety procured by me and one companion, by flight; the third of us stained the accursed jaws of the Læstrygon with his blood. Antiphates pursued us as we fled, and called together his followers; they flocked together, and, without intermission, they showered both stones and beams, and they overwhelmed men, and ships, too, did they overwhelm; yet one, which carried us and Ulysses himself, escaped. A part of our companions thus lost, grieving and lamenting much we arrived at those regions which thou perceivest afar hence. Look! afar hence thou mayst perceive an island,22 that has been seen by me; and do thou, most righteous of the Trojans, thou son of a Goddess, (for, since the war is ended, thou art not, Æneas, to be called an enemy) I warn thee—avoid the shores of Circe.”

Footnotes:

15. Eubœan city.]—Ver. 155. ‘Cumæ’ was said to have been founded by a colony from Chalcis, in Eubœa.

16. Of his nurse.]—Ver. 157. Caieta was the name of the nurse of Æneas, who was said to have been buried there by him.

17. Barbarian.]—Ver. 163. That is, Trojan; to the Greeks all people but themselves were βαρβαροὶ.

18. His own master.]—Ver. 166. ‘Now his own master,’ in contradistinction to the time when Macareus looked on himself as the devoted victim of Polyphemus.

19. Nearly causing.]—Ver. 181. Homer, in the Ninth Book of the Odyssey, recounts how Ulysses, after having put out the eye of Polyphemus, fled to his own ship, and when the Giant followed, called out to him, disclosing his real name; whereas, he had before told the Cyclop that his name was οὔτις, ‘nobody.’ By this indiscreet action, the Cyclop was able to ascertain the locality of the ship, and nearly sank it with a mass of rock which he hurled in that direction.

20. I imagined that.]—Ver. 203-4. ‘Et jam prensurum, jam, jam mea viscera rebar In sua mersurum.’ Clarke thus renders these words; ‘And now I thought he would presently whip me up, and cram my bowels within his own.’

21. The ancient city.]—Ver. 233. This city was afterwards known as Formiæ, in Campania.

22. An island.]—Ver. 245. Macareus here points towards the promontory of Circæum, which was supposed to have formerly been an island.