a god of whom we know not; my Arcadians believe that 20 they have seen there great Jove himself, oft and oft, shaking with his right hand the shadowy Ægis[256] and calling up the storm. Here, too, in these two towns, with their ramparts overthrown, you see the relics and the chronicles of bygone ages. This tower was built by father 25 Janus, that by Saturn; the one’s name Janiculum, the other’s Saturnia.” So talking together they came nigh the palace where Evander dwells in poverty, and saw cattle all about lowing in the Roman forum and Carinæ’s luxurious precinct. When they reached the gate, “This 30 door,” said the host, “Alcides in his triumph stooped to enter; this mansion contained his presence. Nerve yourself, my guest, to look down on riches, and make your own soul, like his, such as a god would not disdain, and take in no churlish sort the welcome of poverty.” He 35 said, and beneath the slope of his narrow roof ushered in the great Æneas, and laid him to rest on a couch of leaves and the skin of a Libyan bear. Down comes the night, and flaps her sable wings over the earth. But Venus, distracted, and not idly, with a mother’s cares, disturbed by the menaces of the Laurentines and the violence of the gathering storm, addresses Vulcan, and in the nuptial privacy of their golden chamber 5 begins her speech, breathing in every tone the love that gods feel: “In old days of war, while the Argive kings were desolating Pergamus, their destined prey, and ravaging the towers which were doomed to hostile fire, no help for the sufferers, no arms of thy resourceful workmanship 10 did I ask; no, my dearest lord, I chose not to task thee and thy efforts to no end, large as was my debt to the sons of Priam, and many the tears that I shed for Æneas’ cruel agony. Now, by Jove’s commands, he has set his foot on Rutulian soil; so, with the past in my 15 mind, I appear as a suppliant, to ask of his power whom I honour most, as a mother may, armour for my son. Thee the daughter of Nereus, thee the spouse of Tithonus, found accessible to tears. See but what nations are mustering, what cities are closing the gate and pointing 20 the steel against me and the lives I love.” The speech was ended, and the goddess is fondling her undecided lord on all sides in the soft embrace of her snowy arms. Suddenly he caught the wonted fire, the well-known heat shot to his vitals and threaded his melting frame, even as 25 on a day when the fiery rent burst by the thunderclaps runs with gleaming flash along the veil of cloud. His spouse saw the triumph of her art and felt what beauty can do. Then spoke the stern old god, subdued by everlasting love: “Why fetch your excuses from so far? 30