Virgil

Heartbreaking things I saw with my own eyes

And was myself a part of.

The wavering crowd is torn into opposing factions.

All things were full of horror and affright,

And dreadful even the silence of the night.

Three times I tried to fling my arms around her neck,

three times I embraced—nothing... her phantom

sifting through my fingers,

light as wind, quick as a dream in flight.

Some trickery lies hidden.

Sometimes the spark of generous fire

Revives in vanquished hearts again.

A monster awful, shapeless, huge, bereft of light.

I was dismayed; my hair stood stiff, my voice held fast within my jaws.

Fortune favours our first effort.

Up to the sky an immense billow hoists us, then at once,

as the wave sank down, down we plunge to the pit of hell.

Meanwhile the sky revolves and night rushes from the ocean.

Hence would he sow dark rumours in the crowd.