Metamorphoses

Here he stops; and seeming to dismiss his train, and the dutiful attendance of the accompanying crowd, with a placid countenance, he places his body in the Ausonian ship. It is sensible of the weight of the God; and the ship now laden with the Divinity for its freight, the descendants of Æneas rejoice; and a bull having first been slain on the sea-shore, they loosen the twisted cables of the bark bedecked with garlands. A gentle breeze has now impelled the ship. The God is conspicuous aloft, and pressing upon the crooked stern with his neck laid upon it, he looks down upon the azure waters; and with the gentle Zephyrs along the Ionian sea, on the sixth rising of the daughter of Pallas, he makes Italy, and is borne along the Lacinian shores, ennobled by the temple of the Goddess Juno , and the Scylacean coasts. He leaves Iapygia behind, and flies from the Amphissian rocks with the oars on the left side; on the right side he passes by the steep Ceraunia, and Romechium, and Caulon, and Narycia, and he crosses the sea and the straits of the Sicilian Pelorus, and the abodes of the king the grandson of Hippotas, and the mines of Temesa; and then he makes for Leucosia, and the rose-beds of the warm Pæstum. Then he coasts by Capreæ, and the promontory of Minerva, and the hills ennobled with the Surrentine vines, and the city of Hercules, and Stabiæ, and Parthenope made for retirement, and after it the temple of the Cumæan Sibyl. Next, the warm springs are passed by, and Linternum, that bears mastick trees; and then Vulturnus, that carries much sand along with its tide, and Sinuessa, that abounds with snow-white snakes, and the pestilential Minturnæ, and she for whom her foster-child erected the tomb, and the abode of Antiphates, and Trachas, surrounded by the marsh, and the land of Circe, and Antium, with its rocky coast.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 15

Book 15, Line 42ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-15-42