The Aeneid of Virgil, page 78 by Virgil

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79

a winding cell,
And trooping to the call the Cyclops pour
From wood and lofty hill, and crowding fill the shore.

LXXXVI. "We see them scowling impotent, the band

Of AEtna, towering to the stars above,
An awful conclave! Tall as oaks they stand,
Or cypresses--the lofty trees of Jove,
Or cone-clad guardians of Diana's grove.
Fain were we then, in agony of fear,
To shake the canvas to the winds, and rove
At random; natheless, we obey the seer,
Who past those fatal rocks had warned us not to steer,

LXXXVII. "Where Scylla here, and there Charybdis lies,

And death lurks double. Backward we essay
Our course, when lo, from out Pelorus flies
The North-Wind, sent to waft us on our way.
We pass the place where, mingling with the spray,
Through narrow rocks Pantagia's stream outflows;
We see low-lying Thapsus and the bay
Of Megara. These shores the suppliant shows,
Known from the time he shared his wandering chieftain's woes.

LXXXVIII. "Far-stretcht against Plemmyrium's wave-beat shore

An island lies, before Sicania's bay,
Now called Ortygia--'twas its name of yore.
Hither from distant Elis, legends say,
Beneath the seas Alpheus stole his way,
And, mingling now with Arethusa here,
Mounts, a Sicilian fountain, to the day.
Here we with prayer, obedient to the seer,
Invoke the guardian gods to whom the place is dear.

LXXXIX. "Thence past Helorus' marish speeds the bark,

Where fat and fruitful shines the meadowy lea.
We graze the cliffs and jutting rocks, that mark
Pachynus. Camarina's fen we see,
Fixt there for ever by the fates' decree;
Then Gela's town (the river gave the name)
And Gela's plains, far-stretching from the sea,
And distant towers and lofty walls proclaim
Steep Acragas, once known for generous steeds of fame.

XC. "Thee too we pass, borne onward by the wind,

Palmy Selinus, and the treacherous strand
And shoals of Lilybaeum

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