Metamorphoses by Ovid — Book XIV, The Companions of Diomedes

Macareus finished. And Aeneas' nurse,
now buried in a marble urn, had this
brief, strange inscription on her tomb:—
“My foster-child of proven piety,
burned me Caieta here: although
I was at first preserved from Argive fire,
I later burned with fire which was my due.”
The cable loosened from the grassy bank,
⁴⁴⁶they steered a course which kept them well away
from ill famed Circe's wiles and from her home
and sought the groves where Tiber dark with shade,
breaks with his yellow sands into the sea.
Aeneas then fell heir to the home and won
the daughter of Latinus, Faunus' son,
not without war. A people very fierce
made war, and Turnus, their young chief,
⁴⁵¹indignant fought to hold a promised bride.
With Latium all Etruria was embroiled,
a victory hard to win was sought through war.
By foreign aid each side got further strength:
the camp of Rutuli abounds in men,
and many throng the opposing camp of Troy.
⁴⁵⁶Aeneas did not find Evander's home
in vain. But Venulus with no success
came to the realm of exiled Diomed.
That hero had marked out his mighty walls
with favor of Iapygian Daunus and
held fields that came to him as marriage dower.
When Venulus, by Turnus' orders, made
⁴⁶¹request for aid, the Aetolian hero said
that he was poor in men: he did not wish
to risk in battle himself nor any troops
belonging to his father-in-law and had
no troops of his that he could arm for battle.
“Lest you should think I feign,” he then went on
“Although my grief must be renewed because
of bitter recollections of the past,
I will endure recital now to you:—
⁴⁶⁶“After the lofty Ilion was burnt
and Pergama had fed the Grecian flames,
and Ajax, the Narycian hero, had
brought from a virgin, for a virgin wronged,
the punishment which he alone deserved
on our whole expedition, we were then
dispersed and driven by violent winds
over the hostile seas; and we, the Greeks,
had to endure in darkness, lightning, rain,
⁴⁷¹the wrath both of the heavens and of the sea,
and Caphareus, the climax of our woe.
Not to detain you by relating such
unhappy things in order, Greece might then
have seemed to merit even Priam's tears.
“Although well armed Minerva's care preserved
me then and brought me safe through rocks and waves,
⁴⁷⁶from my native Argos I was driven again,
for outraged Venus took her full revenge
remembering still that wound of long ago;
and I endured such hardships on the deep,
and hazards amid armies on the shore,
that often I called those happy whom the storm—
⁴⁸¹an ill that came on all, or Cephareus had drowned.
I even wished I had been one of them.
“My best companions having now endured
utmost extremities in wars and seas,
lost courage and demanded a swift end
of our long wandering. Acmon, by nature hot,
and much embittered by misfortune, said,
⁴⁸⁶‘What now remains for you, my friends,
that patience can endure? What can be done
by Venus (if she wants to) more than she
already has done? While we have a dread
of greater evils, reason will be found
for patience; but, when fortune brings her worst,
we scorn and trample fear beneath our feet.
Upon the height of woe, why should we care?
⁴⁹¹Let Venus listen, let her hate Diomed
more than all others—as indeed she does,
we all despise her hate. At a great price
we have bought and won the right to such contempt!’
“With language of this kind Pleuronian Acmon.
Provoking Venus further than before,
revived her former anger. His fierce words
⁴⁹⁶were then approved of by a few, while we
the greater number of his real friends,
rebuked the words of Acmon: and while he
prepared to answer us, his voice, and even
the passage of his voice, were both at once
diminished, his hair changed to feathers, while
his neck took a new form. His breast and back
covered themselves with down, and both his arms
grew longer feathers, and his elbows curved
⁵⁰¹into light wings, much of each foot was changed
to long toes, and his mouth grew still and hard
with pointed horn.
“Amazed at his swift change
were Lycus, Abas, Nycteus and Rhexenor.
And, while they stared, they took his feathered shape.
⁵⁰⁶The larger portion of my company
flew from their boat, resounding all around
our oars with flapping of new-fashioned wings.
If you should ask the form of these strange birds
they were like snowy swans, though not the same.
“Now as Iapygian Daunus' son-in-law
⁵¹¹I scarcely hold this town and arid fields
with my small remnant of trustworthy men.”
So Diomed made answer. Venulus
soon after left the Calydonian realms,
Peucetian bays, and the Messapian fields.
Among those fields he saw a darkened cave
in woods and waving reeds. The halfgoat Pan
⁵¹⁶now lives there, but in older time the nymphs
possessed it. An Apulian shepherd scared
them from that spot. At first he terrified
them with a sudden fear, but soon in scorn,
as they considered what the intruder was,
they danced before him, moving feet to time.
⁵²¹The shepherd clown abused them, capering,
grotesquely imitating graceful steps,
and railed at them with coarse and foolish words.
⁵²⁶He was not silent till a tree's new bark
had closed his mouth for now he is a tree.
And the wild olive's fruit took bitterness
from him. It has the tartness of his tongue.

⁵²⁷When the ambassadors returned and told
their tale about Aetolian arms refused,
the bold Rutulians carried on the war
without those forces, and much blood was shed.
Then Turnus with a greedy torch drew near
the Trojan fleet, well built of close-knit pine.
What had escaped the waves, now feared the flame.
⁵³²Soon Mulciber was burning pitch and wax
and other food of fire, up the high masts
he ran and fed upon the tight furled sails,
and even the benches in the curved hull smoked.
When the holy mother of the gods, recalling
how those same pines were felled on Ida's crest,
⁵³⁷filled the wind with a sound of cymbals clashed
and trill of boxwood flutes. Borne through light air
by her famed lion yoke, she came and said,
“In vain you cast the fire with impious hand,
Turnus, for I will save this burning fleet.
I will not let the greedy flame consume
trees that were part and members of my grove.”
⁵⁴²It thundered while she spoke, and heavy clouds,
following the thunder, brought a storm
of bounding hail. The Astraean brothers filled
both air and swollen waters with their rage
and rushed to battle. With the aid of one
of them the kindly mother broke the ropes
⁵⁴⁷which held the Phrygian ships, and, drawing all
prow foremost, plunged them underneath the wave.
Softening quickly in the waters quiet depth,
their wood was changed to flesh, the curving prows
were metamorphosed into human heads,
blades of the oars made feet, the looms were changed
to swimming legs, the sides turned human flanks,
⁵⁵²each keel below the middle of a ship
transformed became a spine, the cordage changed
to soft hair, and the sail yards changed to arms.
The azure color of the ships remained.
As sea-nymphs in the water they began
to agitate with virgin sports the waves,
which they had always dreaded. Natives of
the rugged mountains they are now so changed,
⁵⁵⁷they swim and dwell in the soft flowing sea,
with every influence of birth forgot.
Never forgetful of the myriad risks
they have endured among the boisterous waves,
they often give a helping hand to ships
tossed in the power of storms—unless, of course,
the ship might carry men of Grecian race.
⁵⁶²Never forgetful of the Phrygians and
catastrophe, their hatred was so great
of all Pelasgians, that they looked with joy
upon the fragments of Ulysses' ship;
and were delighted when they saw the ship
of King Alcinous growing hard upon
the breakers, as its wood was turned to stone.
Many were hopeful that a fleet which had
received life strangely in the forms of nymphs
⁵⁶⁷would cause the chieftain of the Rutuli
to feel such awe that he would end their strife.
But he continued fighting, and each side
had its own gods, and each had courage too,
which often can be as potent as the gods.
Now they forgot the kingdom as a dower,
forgot the scepter of a father-in-law,
and even forgot the pure Lavinia:
their one thought was to conquer, and they waged
war to prevent the shame of a defeat.
⁵⁷²But Venus finally beheld the arms
of her victorious son; for Turnus fell,
and Ardea fell, a town which, while he lived,
was counted strong. The Trojan swords
destroyed it.—All its houses burned and sank
down in the heated embers: and a bird
not known before that time, flew upward from
a wrecked heap, beating the dead ashes with
⁵⁷⁷its flapping wings. The voice, the lean pale look,
the sorrows of a captured city, even
the name of the ruined city, all these things
remain in that bird—Ardea's fallen walls
are beaten in lamentation by his wings.

⁵⁸¹The merit of Aeneas now had moved
the gods. Even Juno stayed her lasting hate,
when, with the state of young Iulus safe,
the hero son of Cytherea was
prepared for heaven. In a council of the gods
Venus arose, embraced her father's neck,
⁵⁸⁶and said: “ My father, ever kind to me,
I do beseech your kind indulgence now;
grant, dearest, to Aeneas, my own son
and also your own grandson, grant to him
a godhead power, although of lowest class,
sufficient if but granted. It is enough
⁵⁹¹to have looked once upon the unlovely realm.
And once to have gone across the Stygian streams.”
The gods assented, and the queen of Jove
nodded consent with calm, approving face.
The father said, “You well deserve the gift,
both you who ask it, and the one for whom
you ask it: what you most desire is yours,
⁵⁹⁶my daughter.” He decreed, and she rejoiced
and thanked her parent. Borne by harnessed doves
over and through the light air, she arrived
safe on Laurentine shores: Numicius there
winds through his tall reeds to the neighboring sea
the waters of his stream: and there she willed
Numicius should wash perfectly away
from her Aeneas every part that might
be subject unto death; and bear it far
⁶⁰¹with quiet current into Neptune's realm.
The horned Numicius satisfied the will
of Venus; and with flowing waters washed
from her Aeneas every mortal part,
and sprinkled him, so that the essential part
of immortality remained alone,
and she anointed him, thus purified,
with heavenly essence, and she touched his face
⁶⁰⁶with sweetest nectar and ambrosia mixt,
thereby transforming him into a god.
The throng of the Quirini later named
the new god Indiges, and honored him.