XXXII. "There, audience gained and liberty to speak,
The gifts we tender, and our names declare
And country, who our foemen, what we seek,
And why to Arpi and his court we fare.
He hears, and gently thus bespeaks us fair:
'O happy nations, once by Saturn blest,
Time-old Ausonians, what sad misfare,
What evil fortune mars your ancient rest		280
And tempts to wage strange wars, and dare the doubtful test?

XXXIII. "'All we, whoever with the steel profaned
Troy's fields (I leave the wasting siege alone,
The dead, who lie in Simois), all have drained
Evils past utterance, o'er the wide world blown,
And, suffering, learned our trespass to atone,
A hapless band! E'en Priam's self might weep
For woes like ours, as Pallas well hath known,
Whose baleful star once [wrecked us on the deep,]		289
And grim [Euboea's rocks, Caphareus'] vengeful steep.

XXXIV. "'Freed from that war, to distant shores we stray.
To [Proteus' Pillars,] far remote from men
An exile, [Menelaus] wends his way;
[Ulysses] shudders at the Cyclops' den;
Why speak of [Pyrrhus,] by Orestes slain?
Or poor [Idomeneus,] expelled his state?
Of Locrians, cast upon the Libyan plain?
Of [Agamemnon,] greatest of the great,		298
Mycenæ's valiant lord, slain by his faithless mate,

XXXV. "'E'en on his threshold, when the adulterer lay
In wait for Asia's conqueror? Me, too,
Hath envious Heaven in exile doomed to stay,
Nor home, nor wife, nor [Calydon] to view.
Nay, ghastly prodigies my flight pursue.
Transformed to birds, my comrades wing the skies,—
Ah! cruel punishment for friends so true!—
Or skim the streams; from all the shores arise		307
Their piteous shrieks, the cliffs re-echo with their cries.
XXXVI. "'Such woes had I to look for, from the day
I dared a goddess, and my javelin tore
The hand of Venus. To such fights, I pray,
Persuade me not. Troy fall'n, I fight no more
With Trojans, nor those evil days of yore
Now care to dwell on. To Æneas go,
And take these gifts. Once, hand to hand, we bore
The shock of battle; to my cost I know		316
How to his shield he towers, the whirlwind of his throw.
XXXVII. "'Had Ida's land two others borne as great,
To Argos Dardanus had found his way,
And Greece were mourning now a different fate.
The stubborn siege, the conquerors kept at bay,
For ten whole years, the triumph's long delay
Were his and Hector's doing, each in might
Renowned, and each the foremost in the fray,
Æneas first in piety. Go, plight		325
What peace ye may, but shun to meet him in the fight.'