that we have come hither, and won our way over the mighty river of Erebus.” Instant the hero replied in brief: “Here there are no fixed abodes: our dwellings are in 25 shadowy groves: our settlements on the velvet slope of banks and meadows fresh with running streams. But come, if you will, climb this hill with me, and I will set your feet at once on a road that will lead you.” So saying, he moves on before, and from the top of the ridge 30 points to broad fields of light, while they descend from the summit. But father Anchises, down in the depth of the green dell, was surveying with fond observance the spirits now confined there, but hereafter to pass into the light of day, 35 and scanning, as chance would have it, the whole multitude of his people, even his loved posterity, their destinies, their warrior deeds, their ways and their works. Soon as he saw Æneas advancing through the grass to meet him, he stretched out both his hands with eager movement, tears gushed over his cheeks, and words escaped his lips: “And are you come at last? has love fulfilled a father’s hopes and surmounted the perils of the 5 way? is it mine to look on your face, my son, and listen and reply as we talked of old? Yes; I was even thinking so in my own mind. I was reckoning that it would be, counting over the days. Nor has my longing played me false. Oh, the lands and the mighty seas from which 10 you have come to my presence! the dangers, my son, that have tossed and smitten you! Oh, how I have feared lest you should come to harm in that realm of Libya!” The son replied: “Your shade it was, father, your melancholy shade, that, coming to me oft and oft, constrained 15 me to knock at these doors: here, in the Tyrrhene deep my ships are riding at anchor. Let us grasp hand in hand: let us, my father! Oh, withdraw not from my embrace!” As he spoke, the streaming tears rolled down his face. Thrice, as he stood, he essayed to fling his 20 arms round that dear neck: thrice the phantom escaped the hands that caught at it in vain, impalpable as the wind, fleeting as the wings of sleep.