re duly there fulfilled,
Unto the wind our sail-yard horns we fall to turn about,
And leave the houses of the Greeks, and nursing fields of doubt. 550
And next is seen Tarentum's bay, the Herculean place
If fame tell true; Lacinia then, the house of Gods, we face;
And Caulon's towers, and Scylaceum, of old the shipman's bane.
Then see we AEtna rise far off above Trinacria's main;
Afar the mighty moan of sea, and sea-cliffs beaten sore,
We hearken, and the broken voice that cometh from the shore:
The sea leaps high upon the shoals, the eddy churns the sand.

Then saith Anchises: 'Lo forsooth, Charybdis is at hand,
Those rocks and stones the dread whereof did Helenus foretell.
Save ye, O friends! swing out the oars together now and well!' 560

Nor worser than his word they do, and first the roaring beaks
Doth Palinurus leftward wrest; then all the sea-host seeks
With sail and oar the waters wild upon the left that lie:
Upheaved upon the tossing whirl we fare unto the sky,
Then down unto the nether Gods we sink upon the wave:
Thrice from the hollow-carven rocks great roar the sea-cliffs gave;
Thrice did we see the spray cast forth and stars with sea-dew done;
But the wind left us weary folk at sinking of the sun,
And on the Cyclops' strand we glide unwitting of the way.

Locked from the wind the haven is, itself an ample bay; 570
But hard at hand mid ruin and fear doth AEtna thunder loud;
And whiles it blasteth forth on air a black and dreadful cloud,
That rolleth on a pitchy wreath, where bright the ashes mix,
And heaveth up great globes of flame and heaven's high star-world licks,
And other whiles the very cliffs, and riven mountain-maw
It belches forth; the molten stones together will it draw
Aloft with moan, and boileth o'er from lowest inner vale.
This world of mountain presseth down, as told it is in tale,
Enceladus the thunder-scorched; huge AEtna on him cast,
From all her bursten furnaces breathes out his fiery blast; 580
And whensoe'er his weary side he shifteth, all the shore
Trinacrian trembleth murmuring, and heaven is smoke-clad o'er.

In thicket close we wear the night amidst these marvels dread,
Nor may we see what thing it is that all that noise hath shed:
For neither showed the planet fires, nor was the heaven bright
Wit