But further, while the altar-fires she feeds with virgin brands,
The maid Lavinia, and beside her ancient father stands,
Out! how along her length of hair the grasp of fire there came,
And all the tiring of her head was caught in crackling flame.
And there her royal tresses blazed, and blazed her glorious crown
Gem-wrought, and she one cloud of smoke and yellow fire was grown:
And wrapped therein, the fiery God she scattered through the house:
And sure it seemed a dreadful thing, a story marvellous:
For they fell singing she should grow glorious of fame and fate,
But unto all her folk should be the seed of huge debate.80
So troubled by this tokening dread forth fareth now the king
To Faunus' fane, his father-seer, to ask him counselling
'Neath Albunea the high, whose wood, the thicket most of worth,
Resoundeth with the holy well and breathes the sulphur forth.
From whence the folk of Italy and all Œnotrian land
Seek rede amidst of troublous time. Here, when the priest in hand
Hath borne the gifts, and laid him down amidst the hush of night
On the strown fells of slaughtered ewes, and sought him sleep aright,
He seeth wondrous images about him flit and shift,
He hearkeneth many a changing voice, of talk with Gods hath gift,90
And holdeth speech with Acheron, from deep Avernus come.
There now the sire Latinus went seeking the answers home,
And there an hundred woolly ewes in order due did slay,
And propped upon the fells thereof on bed of fleeces lay,
Till from the thickets inner depths the sudden answer came:
"Seek not thy daughter, O my son, to wed to Latin name;
Unto the bridal set on foot let not thy troth be given:
Thy sons are coming over sea to raise our blood to heaven,
And sons of sons' sons from their stem shall see beneath their feet
All things for them to shift and doom; all things the sun may meet,100
As to and fro he wendeth way 'twixt either ocean wave."
Such warnings of the silent night that father Faunus gave,
Shut up betwixt his closed lips Latinus held no whit,
But through Ausonia flying fame had borne the noise of it,
When that Laomedontian folk at last had moored their ships
Unto the grassy-mounded bank whereby the river slips.
Æneas and Iulus fair, and all their most and best,
Beneath a tall tree's boughs had laid their bodies down to rest:
They dight the feast; about the grass on barley-cakes they lay
What meat they had,—for even so Jove bade them do that day,—110
And on the ground that Ceres gave the woodland apples pile.
And so it happed, that all being spent, they turn them in a while
To Ceres' little field, and eat, egged on by very want,
And dare to waste with hands and teeth the circle thin and scant
Where fate lay hid, nor spare upon the trenchers wide to fall.
"Ah!" cries Iulus, "so today we eat up board and all."
'Twas all his jest-word; but its sound their labour slew at last,
And swift his father caught it up, as from his mouth it passed,
And stayed him, by the might of God bewildered utterly.119
Then forthwith: "Hail," he cried, "O land that Fate hath owed to me!
And ye, O House-gods of our Troy, hail ye, O true and kind!
This is your house, this is your land: my father, as I mind,
Such secrets of the deeds of Fate left me in days of yore:
'O son, when hunger driveth thee stranded on outland shore
To eat the very boards beneath thy victual scant at need,
There hope for house, O weary one, and in that place have heed
To set hand first unto the roof, and heap the garth around.'
So this will be that hunger-tide: this waited us to bound
Our wasting evils at the last.
So come, and let us joyfully upon the first of dawn130
Seek out the land, what place it is, what men-folk there abide,
And where their city; diversely leaving the haven-side.
But now pour out the bowls to Jove, send prayer upon the way
To sire Anchises, and the wine again on table lay."
He spake, and with the leafy bough his temples garlanded,
And to the Spirit of the Soil forthwith the prayer he said,
To Earth, the eldest-born of Gods, to Nymphs, to Streams unknown
As yet: he called upon the Night, and night-tide's signs new shown;
Idæan Jove, the Phrygian Queen, the Mother, due and well
He called on; and his parents twain in Heaven and in Hell.140
But thrice the Almighty Father then from cloudless heaven on high
Gave thunder, showing therewithal the glory of his sky
All burning with the golden gleam, and shaken by his hand.
Then sudden rumour ran abroad amid the Trojan band,
That now the day was come about their fateful walls to raise;
So eagerly they dight the feast, gladdened by omen's grace,
And bring the beakers forth thereto and garland well the wine.
But when the morrow's lamp of dawn across the earth 'gan shine,
The shore, the fields, the towns of folk they search, wide scattering:
And here they come across the pools of that Numician spring:150
This is the Tiber-flood; hereby the hardy Latins dwell.
But therewithal Anchises' seed from out them chose him well
An hundred sweet-mouthed men to go unto the walls renowned,
Where dwelt the king, and every one with Pallas' olive crowned,
To carry gifts unto the lord and peace for Teucrians pray.
So, bidden, nought they tarry now, but swift-foot wear the way.
But he himself marks out the walls with shallow ditch around,
And falls to work upon the shore his first abode to found,
In manner of a camp, begirt with bank and battlement.
Meanwhile his men beheld at last, when all the way was spent,160
The Latin towers and roofs aloft, and drew the walls anigh:
There were the lads and flower of youth afield the city by
Backing the steed, or mid the dust a-steering of the car,
Or bending of the bitter bow, hurling tough darts afar
By strength of arm; for foot or fist crying the challenging.
Then fares a well-horsed messenger, who to the ancient king
Bears tidings of tall new-comers in outland raiment clad:
So straight Latinus biddeth them within his house be had,
And he upon his father's throne sat down amidmost there.