That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled, Expell’d and exil’d; that the coast was free From foreign or domestic enemy. “We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea. By Naxos, fam’d for vintage, make our way; Then green Donysa pass; and sail in sight Of Paros’ isle, with marble quarries white. We pass the scatter’d isles of Cyclades, That, scarce distinguish’d, seem to stud the seas. The shouts of sailors double near the shores; They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars. ‘All hands aloft! for Crete! for Crete!’ they cry, And swiftly thro’ the foamy billows fly. Full on the promis’d land at length we bore, With joy descending on the Cretan shore. With eager haste a rising town I frame, Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name: The name itself was grateful; I exhort To found their houses, and erect a fort. Our ships are haul’d upon the yellow strand; The youth begin to till the labour’d land; And I myself new marriages promote, Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot; When rising vapours choke the wholesome air, And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year; The trees devouring caterpillars burn; Parch’d was the grass, and blighted was the corn: Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high, With pestilential heat infects the sky: My men, some fall, the rest in fevers fry. Again my father bids me seek the shore Of sacred Delos, and the god implore, To learn what end of woes we might expect, And to what clime our weary course direct.