making smooth the ruffled wave...

My "bucket list" has only two items, one of which is a visit to Sir Walter Scott's home in Scotland. The other is to learn enough Latin to read Virgil. I have started the latter though it is, to say the least, daunting. So for the foreseable future translations will have to do. Translation itself, of course, has its great virtues. I am, right now, reading the "Aeneid" book by book in four different translations:

John Conington's version using Walter Scott's poetic form

H.R. Fairclough's version, updated by Goold, (Loeb Library)

Allen Mandelbaum's version...and, finally, 

the newest translation by Robert Fagels.

This the first great "Homeric simile" in all four versions...Neptune has just calmed the raging seas, saving Aeneas from certain death...

Conington: "He...Makes smooth the ruffled wave, and rides

Calm o'er the surface of the tides.

As when sedition oft has stirred

In some great town the vulgar herd,

And brands and stones already fly-

For rage has weapons always nigh-

Then should some man of worth appear

Whose stainless virtue all revere,

They hush, they hist; his clear voice rules

Their rebel wills, their anger cools;"

Fairclough:  "Thus he speaks, and swifter than his word he calms the swollen seas...As when oftentimes in a great nation tumult has risen, the base rabble rage angrily, and now brands and stones fly, madness lending arms; then, if perchance they set eyes on a man honoured for noble character and service, they are silent and stand by with  attentive; with speech he sways their passion and soothes their breasts..."

Mandelbaum:  "But now the god himself takes up his trident 

to lift the galleys, and he clears a channel

across a vast sandbank...

And just as, often, when a crowd of people

is rocked by a rebellion, and the rabble

rage in their minds, and firebrands and stones

fly fast-for fury finds its weapons-if,

by chance, they see a man remarkable

for righteousness and service, they are silent

and stand attentively; and he controls

their passion by his words and cools their spirits..."

Fagels: "...As the god himself whisks them up with his trident,

clearing a channel through the deadly reefs, his chariot

skimming over the cresting waves on spinning wheels

to set the seas to rest. Just as, all too often

some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising,

the rabble runs amok, all slaves to passion,

rocks, firebrands flying. Rage finds them arms

but then, if they chance to see a man among them,

one whose devotion and public service lend him weight,

they stand there, stock-still with their ears alert as

he rules their furor with his words and calms their passion..."