II. They skirt [the coast, where Circe,] maiden bright,
The Sun's rich daughter, wakes with melodies
The groves that none may enter. There each night,
As nimbly through the slender warp she plies
The whistling shuttle, through her chambers rise
The flames of odorous cedar. Thence the roar
Of lions, raging at their chains, the cries
Of bears close-caged, and many a bristly boar,		10
The yells of monstrous wolves at midnight fill the shore.
III. All these with potent herbs the cruel queen
Had stripped of man's similitude, to wear
A brutal figure, and a bestial mien.
But kindly Neptune, with protecting care,
And loth to see the pious Trojans bear
A doom so vile, such prodigies as these,
Lest, borne perchance into the bay, they near
The baneful shore, fills out with favouring breeze		19
The sails, and speeds their flight across the boiling seas.
IV. Now blushed the deep beneath the dawning ray,
And in her rosy chariot borne on high,
Aurora, bright with saffron, brought the day.
Down drop the winds, the Zephyrs cease to sigh,
And not a breath is stirring in the sky,
And not a ripple on the marble seas,
As heavily the toiling oars they ply.
When near him from the deep Æneas sees		28
A mighty grove outspread, a forest thick with trees.
V. And in the midst of that delightful grove
Fair-flowing Tiber, eddying swift and strong,
Breaks to the main. Around them and above,
Gay-plumaged fowl, that to the stream belong,
And love the channel and the banks to throng,
Now skim the flood, now fly from bough to bough,
And charm the air with their melodious song.
Shoreward Æneas bids them turn the prow,		37
And up the shady stream with joyous hearts they row.

VI. [Say, Erato,] how Latium fared of yore,
What deeds were wrought, what rulers lived and died,
When strangers landed on [Ausonia's] shore,
And trace the rising of the war's dark tide.
Fierce feuds I sing—O Goddess, be my guide,—
Tyrrhenian hosts, the battle's armed array,
Proud kings who fought and perished in their pride,
And all Hesperia gathered to the fray,		46
A larger theme unfolds, and loftier is the lay.

VII. Long had [Latinus] ruled the peaceful state.
A nymph, Marica, of Laurentian breed,
Bore him to [Faunus,] who, as tales relate,
Derived through [Picus] his [Saturnian] seed.
No son was left Latinus to succeed,
His boy had died ere manhood; one alone
Remained, a daughter, so the Fates decreed,
To mind his palace and to heir his throne		55
Ripe now for marriage rites, to nuptial age full-grown.
VIII. Full many a prince from Latium far and wide,
And all Ausonia had essayed in vain
To win the fair Lavinia for his bride.
Her suitor now, the comeliest of the train,
Was Turnus, sprung from an illustrious strain.
Fair seemed his suit, for kindly was the maid,
And dearly the queen loved him, and was fain
His hopes to further, but the Fates gainsayed,		64
And boding signs from Heaven the purposed match delayed.
IX. Deep in the inmost palace, long rever'd,
There stood an ancient laurel. 'Twas the same
That sire Latinus, when the walls he reared,
Found there, and vowed to Phoebus, and the name
"Laurentines" thence his settlers taught to claim.
Here suddenly—behold a wondrous thing!—
Borne with loud buzzing through the air, down came
A swarm of bees. Around the top they cling,		73
And from a leafy branch in linked clusters swing.