Such were the words his tongue uttered; heart-sick[60] with overwhelming care, he wears the semblance of hope in his face, but has grief deep buried in his heart. They 35 gird themselves to deal with the game, their forthcoming meal; strip the hide from the ribs, and lay bare the flesh—some cut it into pieces, and impale it yet quivering on spits, others set up the caldrons on the beach, and supply them with flame. Then with food they recall their strength, and, stretched along the turf, feast on old wine and fat venison to their hearts’ content. Their hunger sated by the meal, and the boards removed, they vent in 5 long talk their anxious yearning for their missing comrades—balanced between hope and fear, whether to think of them as alive, or as suffering the last change, and deaf already to the voice that calls on them. But good Æneas’ grief exceeds the rest; one moment he groans for 10 bold Orontes’ fortune, another for Amycus’, and in the depth of his spirit laments for the cruel fate of Lycus; for the gallant Gyas and the gallant Cloanthus. And now at last their mourning had an end, when Jupiter from the height of ether,[61] looking down on the sea 15 with its fluttering sails, on the flat surface of earth, the shores, and the broad tribes of men, paused thus upon heaven’s very summit, and fixed his downward gaze on Libya’s realms. To him, revolving in his breast such thoughts as these, sad beyond her wont, with tears suffusing 20 her starry eyes, speaks Venus: “O thou, who by thy everlasting laws swayest the two commonwealths of men and gods, and awest them by thy lightning! What can my poor Æneas have done to merit thy wrath? What can the Trojans? yet they, after the many deaths they 25 have suffered already, still find the whole world barred[62] against them for Italy’s sake. From them assuredly it was that the Romans, as years rolled on—from them were to spring those warrior chiefs, aye from Teucer’s blood revived, who should rule sea and land with absolute sway—such 30 was thy promise: how has thy purpose, O my father, wrought a change in thee? This, I know, was my constant solace when Troy’s star set in grievous ruin, as I sat balancing destiny against destiny. And now here is the same Fortune, pursuing the brave men she has so oft discomfited 35 already. Mighty king, what end of sufferings hast thou to give them? Antenor,[63] indeed, found means to escape through the midst of the Achæans, to thread in safety the windings of the Illyrian coast, and the realms of the Liburnians, up at the gulf’s head, and to pass the springs of Timavus, whence through nine mouths,’mid the rocks’ responsive roar, the sea comes bursting up, and deluges the fields with its thundering billows. Yet in that spot 5