'Tell, O Dardanians, for we are not ignorant of your city and race, nor unheard of do you bend your course [197-228]overseas, what seek you? what the cause or whereof the need that hath borne you over all these blue waterways to the Ausonian shore? Whether wandering in your course, or tempest-driven (such perils manifold on the high seas do sailors suffer), you have entered the river banks and lie in harbour; shun not our welcome, and be not ignorant that the Latins are Saturn's people, whom no laws fetter to justice, upright of their own free will and the custom of the god of old. And now I remember, though the story is dimmed with years, thus Auruncan elders told, how Dardanus, born in this our country, made his way to the towns of Phrygian Ida and to the Thracian Samos that is now called Samothrace. Here was the home he left, Tyrrhenian Corythus; now the palace of heaven, glittering with golden stars, enthrones and adds him to the ranged altars of the gods.' He ended; and Ilioneus pursued his speech with these words: 'King, Faunus' illustrious progeny, neither hath black tempest driven us with stress of waves to shelter in your lands, nor hath star or shore misled us on the way we went. Of set purpose and willing mind do we draw nigh this thy city, outcasts from a realm once the greatest that the sun looked on as he came from Olympus' utmost border. From Jove hath our race beginning; in Jove the men of Dardania rejoice as ancestor; our King himself of Jove's supreme race, Aeneas of Troy, hath sent us to thy courts. How terrible the tempest that burst from fierce Mycenae over the plains of Ida, driven by what fate Europe and Asia met in the shock of two worlds, even he hath heard who is sundered in the utmost land where the ocean surge recoils, and he whom stretching midmost of the four zones the zone of the intolerable sun holds in severance. Borne by that flood over many desolate seas, we crave a scant dwelling [229-261]for our country's gods, an unmolested landing-place, and the air and water that are free to all. We shall not disgrace the kingdom; nor will the rumour of your renown be lightly gone or the grace of all you have done fade away; nor will Ausonia be sorry to have taken Troy to her breast. By the fortunes of Aeneas I swear, by that right hand mighty, whether tried in friendship or in warlike arms, many and many a people and nation--scorn us not because we advance with hands proffering chaplets and words of supplication--hath sought us for itself and desired our alliance; but yours is the land that heaven's high ordinance drove us forth to find. Hence sprung Dardanus: hither Apollo recalls us, and pushes us on with imperious orders to Tyrrhenian Tiber and the holy pools of Numicus' spring. Further, he presents to thee these small guerdons of our past estate, relics saved from burning Troy. From this gold did lord Anchises pour libation at the altars; this was Priam's