He ended; and Ilioneus followed thus: “Great king, illustrious son of Faunus, no stress of gloomy storm has made us the sport of the waves and driven us on your coast, no sky or land misread has beguiled us of our track: of set purpose, with full intent, we are arrived one 15 and all at your city, driven from a realm once the greatest which the sun surveyed in his course from end to end of heaven. From Jove is the origin of our race; in Jove, as their ancestor, the sons of Dardanus glory; our monarch himself, sprung of Jove’s own pure blood, Æneas of Troy, 20 has sent us to your doors. How dire a hurricane, launched from fell Mycenæ, swept over Ida’s plains—how the two worlds of Europe and Asia, fate driving each, met and crashed together—has reached the ears of the man, if such there be, whom earth’s last corner withdraws from 25 the wash of ocean, and his too who is parted from his fellows by the zone that lies midmost among the four, the zone of the tyrannous sun. From the jaws of that deluge flying over many and mighty waters, we ask of you for our country’s gods a narrow resting-place—the harmless 30 privilege of the coast, and the common liberty of water and air. We shall be no disgrace to your kingdom, nor light shall be the fame that men will blaze of you, nor shall gratitude for your great bounty grow old, nor shall Ausonia mourn the day when she welcomed Troy to her 35 heart. I swear by Æneas’ star, by his strong right hand, known as such by all who have proved it in friendship or in war, many have been the peoples, many the nations—nay, scorn us not for that we accost you with fillets of suppliance and words of prayer—who have sued for our company and wished to make us one with them. But the oracles of heaven, speaking as they only can, have driven us to search out your realms. Hence sprang Dardanus; 5 hither Apollo bids us return, with the instance of high command, even to Tuscan Tiber and the sacred waters of Numicius’ spring. Moreover, here are presents from Æneas, the scanty offerings of past prosperity, relics snatched from the flames of Troy. From this gold his father, Anchises, 10 poured libations at the altar; this was Priam’s royal accoutrement, when he gave laws in kingly fashion to the assembled people; this sceptre, this sacred diadem, these robes, the work of Trojan dames.”