P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneid
Theodore C. Williams, Ed.

While thus he cried to Heaven, a shrieking blast
smote full upon the sail. Up surged the waves
to strike the very stars; in fragments flew
the shattered oars; the helpless vessel veered
and gave her broadside to the roaring flood,
where watery mountains rose and burst and fell.
Now high in air she hangs, then yawning gulfs
lay bare the shoals and sands o'er which she drives.
Three ships a whirling south wind snatched and flung
on hidden rocks,—altars of sacrifice
Italians call them, which lie far from shore
a vast ridge in the sea; three ships beside
an east wind, blowing landward from the deep,
drove on the shallows,—pitiable sight,—
and girdled them in walls of drifting sand.
That ship, which, with his friend Orontes, bore
the Lycian mariners, a great, plunging wave
struck straight astern, before Aeneas' eyes.
Forward the steersman rolled and o'er the side
fell headlong, while three times the circling flood
spun the light bark through swift engulfing seas.
Look, how the lonely swimmers breast the wave!
And on the waste of waters wide are seen
weapons of war, spars, planks, and treasures rare,
once Ilium's boast, all mingled with the storm.
Now o'er Achates and Ilioneus,
now o'er the ship of Abas or Aletes,
bursts the tempestuous shock; their loosened seams
yawn wide and yield the angry wave its will.