Now be with me Erato,[239] and I will unfold who were the kings, what the stage of circumstance, what the condition of ancient Latium, when the stranger host first landed on 10 Ausonian shores, and will recall how the first blood was drawn. Thou, goddess, thou prompt thy poet’s memory. Mine is a tale of grisly war, of battle array, and princes in their fury rushing on carnage—of Tyrrhenian[240] ranks, and all Hesperia mustered in arms. Grander is the pile of 15 events that rises on my view, grander the task I essay. It was the time when king Latinus, now stricken in age, was ruling country and city in the calm of years of peace. He, as story tells us, was the son of Faunus and a Laurentine nymph, Marica. Faunus’ father was Picus, who owes his 20 birth to thee, great Saturn: thou art the first founder of the line. No son, no male progeny, so Heaven willed, had Latinus now; just as it was budding into youth, the branch was cut off. The sole maintainer of the race, the sole guardian of that princely house, was a daughter, already 25 ripe for wedlock, already arrived at full-blown womanhood. Many were her wooers from mighty Latium, nay, from all Ausonia. One wooer there was in beauty passing others, Turnus,[241] strong in the glory of sires and grandsires: his alliance the queen with intense yearning was seeking to compass; 30 but heavenly portents bar the way with manifold alarm. There was a laurel in the middle of the palace, in the very heart of royal privacy, sacred in its every leaf, cherished by the awful observance of many years; men said that father Latinus himself found it there when he first laid the 35 foundation of the tower, dedicated it to Phœbus, and thence gave his new people the name of Laurentines. On the top of this tree lodged a dense swarm of bees, marvellous to tell, sailing thither with loud humming noise across the liquid air, and twining their legs together, the cluster in a moment was seen to hang from the leafy bough. At once spoke a prophet: “There is a stranger approaching: I see him now; along this self-same path a troop is moving 5 hitherward, and commanding the height of the citadel.” Moreover, while Lavinia is applying the hallowed torch to the altars, as she stands in maiden purity at her father’s side, she was seen, oh, monstrous sight! to catch the fire with her long tresses, all her headgear consuming in the 10 crackling flame, her queenly hair, her jewelled coronal all ablaze, till at last she was wrapt in smoke and yellow glare, and scattered the fire-god’s sparks the whole palace through. There indeed was a tale of horror, a marvel and a portent; for, said the wise men, she will herself be illustrious 15 in fame and fortune, but to the nation she bodes tremendous war. Troubled by these prodigies, the king