#6 Burning of the Fleet

Episode #6:  Juno & Iris Incite the Trojan Women to Burn the Fleet

Vergil Aeneid Book 5 (lines 604-699)

[summarized in ‘Search for a Homeland’ pp. 53-55]

Here Fortune first changes, switching loyalties. While the Trojan men,

with their various games, are paying due honors to Anchises’ tomb,

Saturnian Juno sends Iris down from the sky to the Trojan fleet,

breathing out a breeze for her passage, thinking deeply

about her ancient grievance which is yet unsatisfied.

Iris, hurrying on her way along a rainbow’s thousand colors

speeds swiftly down her track, a girl unseen.

She views the great crowd, and scans the shore,

sees the harbor deserted, and the ships abandoned.

But far away on the lonely sands the Trojan women

are weeping Anchises’ loss, and all, weeping, gaze

at the deep ocean. ‘Ah, what waves and seas are still left

for weary folk!’ They are all of one voice. They pray for

a city: they tire of enduring suffering on the waves.

So Iris, not ignorant of mischief, darts among them,

setting aside the appearance and robes of a goddess:

becoming Beroe, the old wife of the Trojan named Doryclus,

who had once had family, sons, and a famous name.

And, disguised as such, Iris moves among the Trojan mothers, saying:

‘O wretched ones, whom Greek hands failed to drag

to death in the war beneath our native walls!

O unhappy people what fate does Fortune reserve for you?

The seventh summer is on the turn since Troy’s destruction,

and we endure the crossing of every sea and shore,

so many inhospitable stones and stars, while we chase over the vast sea

after an Italy that flees from us, tossing upon the waves.

Here are the borders of our brother Eryx and our host Acestes:

what stops us building walls and granting our citizens a city?

O fatherland, O gods of our houses, rescued from the enemy

in vain, will no city now be called Troy? Shall I see

nowhere a Xanthus or a Simois, Hector’s rivers?

Come now, and burn these accursed ships with me.

For the ghost of Cassandra, the prophetess, seemed to hand me

burning torches in dream: “Seek Troy here: here is

your home!” she said. Now is the time for deeds,

not delay, given such portents. See, four altars to Neptune:

the god himself lends us fire and the courage.’

So saying she first of all firmly seizes the dangerous flame

and, straining to lift it high, brandishes it, and hurls it towards the ships.

The minds of the Trojan women are startled, and their wits

stunned. Here, one of the crowd, Pyrgo, the eldest,

the royal nurse of so many of Priam’s sons, says:

‘This is not Beroe, you women, this is no wife

of the Trojan Doryclus: look at the signs of divine beauty

and the burning eyes, the spirit she possesses,

her form, the sound of her voice, her footsteps as she moves.

Just now I myself left Beroe, sick and unhappy, that she alone

was missing so important a rite and could not pay Anchises

the offerings due to him.’ So she speaks. At first the women

gaze in uncertainty at the ships, with angry glances,

torn between a wretched yearning for the land

they have reached, and the kingdom fate calls them to,

when the goddess, climbs the sky on soaring wings,

cutting a giant rainbow in her flight through the clouds.

Then truly amazed at the wonder, and driven by madness,

they cry out and some snatch fire from the innermost hearths,

others strip the altars, and throw on leaves and twigs

and burning brands. Fire rages unchecked among the Trojan ships,

their benches, and oars, and their hulls of painted pine.

A messenger carries the news of the burning ships to Anchises’ tomb

and the ranks of the amphitheater, and looking behind them

they themselves see dark ash floating upwards in a cloud.

Ascanius is first to turn his horse eagerly towards the troubled

encampment, as joyfully as he led his galloping troop,

and his breathless guardians cannot rein him back.

‘What new madness is this?’ Ascanius cries. ‘What now, what do you

aim at, wretched women? You’re burning your own hopes

not the enemy, nor a hostile Greek camp. See I am

your Ascanius!’ And he flung his empty helmet in front of his feet,

that he’d worn as he’d inspired his pretence of battle in play.

Aeneas hurries there too, and the Trojan companies.

But the women scatter in fear here and there along the shore,

and stealthily head for the woods and any cavernous rocks:

they hate what they’ve done and the light, with sober minds

they recognize their kin, and Juno is driven from their hearts.

But the roaring flames don’t lose their indomitable fury

just for that: the pine-tar is alight under the wet timbers,

slowly belching smoke, the keel is gradually burned,

and the destructive fire sinks through a whole hull,

nor are heroic strength or floods of water any use.

Then virtuous Aeneas tears the clothes from his chest,

and calls on the gods for help, lifting his hands:

‘All-powerful Jupiter, if you don’t hate the Trojans

to a man, if your former affection has regard

for human suffering, let the fleet escape the flames now,

Father, and save our slender Trojan hopes from ruin:

or if I deserve this, send what is left of us to death with your

angry lightning-bolt, and overwhelm us with your hand.’

He had barely spoken, when a dark storm with pouring rain

rages without check and the high hills and plains

quake with thunder: a murky downpour falls

from the whole sky, the blackest of heavy southerlies,

and the ships are brimming, the half-burnt timbers soaked,

until all the heat is quenched, and all the hulls

except four, are saved from the fiery pestilence.