Around and above, birds of all plumes, the constant tenants
of bank and stream, were lulling the air with their notes and
flying among the woods. He bids his comrades turn aside 5
and set their prows landward, and enters with joy the
river’s shadowed bed.
Now be with me Erato,[239] and I will unfold who were the
kings, what the stage of circumstance, what the condition
of ancient Latium, when the stranger host first landed on 10
Ausonian shores, and will recall how the first blood was
drawn. Thou, goddess, thou prompt thy poet’s memory.