Æneas and his chief captains, and Iulus young and fair, lay their limbs to rest under the boughs of a lofty tree; 10 there they spread the banquet, putting cakes of flour along the sward to support the food—such was Jove’s high inspiration—and rearing on the wheaten foundation a pile of wilding fruits. It chanced that when the rest was eaten, the want of meat forced them to ply their tooth on those 15 scanty gifts of Ceres—to profane with venturous hand and mouth the sanctity of the cake’s fated circle, nor respect the square impressed on its surface. “What! eating our tables[242] as well?” cries Iulus, in his merry vein; that and no more. That utterance first told the hearers that their 20 toils were over: even as it fell from the boy’s mouth his father caught it up and broke it short, wondering in himself at the power of Heaven. Then anon: “Hail to thee, promised land of my destiny! hail to you,” he cries, “Troy’s faithful gods! Yes, here is our home—this our country. 25 It was my father—these, I remember, were the mystic words of fate he left me: ‘My son, whenever you are wafted to an unknown coast, and hunger drives you, failing food, to eat your tables, then remember my saying, there look for a home of rest, set up your first roof-tree and strengthen 30 it with mound and rampart.’ This was the hunger he meant. This was the last strait in store for us, not the beginning but the end of death. Come then, take heart, and with the morrow’s earliest light explore we what is the place, who its dwellers, where the city of the nation, 35 making from the haven in different ways. Meanwhile pour libations to Jove, invoke in prayer my sire Anchises, and set again the wine on the board.” So having said, he wreathes his brow with the leafy spray, and offers prayer to the genius of the spot; to Earth the eldest of the gods; to the nymphs and the streams yet unknown by name: after that, to Night and Night’s new-born stars and Ida’s Jove, and Phrygia’s mighty mother, invoking each 5 in turn, and his own two parents in the upper and the nether world. Just then the Almighty Father thundered thrice aloft in a clear sky, and with his own right hand flashed in open view from on high a cloud ablaze with rays of golden light. At once the news spreads among the Trojan 10 ranks that the day has arrived when they are to build their promised city. With emulous haste they celebrate the banquet, and in the power of the august presage set on the bowls exultingly, and wreathe the wine.