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To heav’n aloft on ridgy waves we ride,
Then down to hell descend, when they divide.[Tollimur in caelum curvato gurgite, et idem
subducta ad Manis imos desedimus unda.]Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 3, l. 564ff (3.564-565) [Aeneus] (29-19 BC) [tr. Dryden (1697)]
(Source)
As the ship passes Charybdis. (Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
We mount up to heaven on the arched gulf, and down again we settle to the shades below, the wave having retired.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]
Now to the sky mounts up the ship,
Now to the very shades we dip.
[tr. Conington (1866)]
The curving wave one moment lifts us up
Skyward, then sinks us down as in the shades
Of death.
[tr. Cranch (1872)]
We are lifted skyward on the crescent wave, and again sunk deep into the nether world as the water is sucked away.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]
Upheaved upon the tossing whirl we fare unto the sky,
Then down unto the nether Gods we sink upon the wave.
[tr. Morris (1900)]
Now curls the wave, and lifts us to the sky,
Now sinks and, plunging in the gulf we lie.
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 72, ll. 643-44]
We shot to skyward on the arching surge,
then, as she sank, dropped deeper than the grave.
[tr. Williams (1910)]
We mount up to heaven on the arched billow and again, with the receding wave, sink down to the depths of hell.
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]
One moment
We were in the clouds, the next in the gulf of Hell.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]
We were tossed up high on an arching surge, then down we went
In the trough as the wave fell away, down to the very Pit.
[tr. Day Lewis (1952)]
We rise to heaven on the bending wave
and, as the surge slips back, we sink again
down to the deepest Shades.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 734ff]
On every rolling sea
We rose to heaven, and in the abysmal trough
Sank down into the world of shades.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981), l. 749ff]
A great arching wave came and lifted us to the sky and a moment later as the wave was sucked down we plunged into the abyss of hell.
[tr. West (1990)]
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.
[tr. Fagles (2006), ll. 658-59]
A curved wave thrust us to the sky, then sank. As we fell, we plunged down to the depths of Hades.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]