“Townsmen, we have looked on Diomede and his Argive 20 encampment: the journey is overpast, and every chance surmounted, and we have touched the hand by which the realm of Ilion fell. We found him raising his city of Argyripa, the namesake of his ancestral people, in the land of Iapygian Garganus which his sword had won. Soon as 25 the presence was gained and liberty of speech accorded, we proffer our gifts, inform him of our name and country, who is our invader, and what cause has led us to Arpi.[275] He listened, and returned as follows with untroubled mien: ‘O children of fortune, subjects of Saturn’s reign, men of 30 old Ausonia, what caprice of chance disturbs you in your repose, and bids you provoke a war ye know not? Know that all of us, whose steel profaned the sanctity of Ilion’s soil—I pass the hardships of war, drained to the dregs under those lofty ramparts, the brave hearts which that 35 fatal Simois covers—yea, all of us the wide world over have paid the dues of our trespass in agonies unutterable, a company that might have wrung pity even from Priam: witness Minerva’s baleful star, and the crags of Eubœa, and Caphereus the avenger. Discharged from that warfare, wandering outcasts on diverse shores, Menelaus, Atreus’ son, is journeying in banishment even to the pillars of Proteus[276]; Ulysses has looked upon Ætna and her Cyclop 5 brood. Need I tell of Neoptolemus’ portioned realms, of Idomeneus’ dismantled home, of Locrian settlers on a Libyan coast? Even the monarch[277] of Mycenæ, the leader of the great Grecian name, met death on his very threshold at the hand of his atrocious spouse; Asia fell 10 before him, but the adulterer rose in her room. Cruel gods, that would not have me restored to the hearth-fires of my home, to see once more the wife of my longing and my own fair Calydon! Nay, even my flight is dogged by portents of dreadful view; my comrades torn from me are winging 15 the air and haunting the stream as birds—alas that the followers of my fortunes should suffer so!—and making the rocks ring with the shrieks of their sorrow. Such was the fate I had to look for even from that day when with my frantic steel I assailed the flesh of immortals, and impiously 20 wounded Venus’ sacred hand. Nay, nay, urge me no longer to a war like this. Since Pergamus fell, my fightings with Troy are ended; I have no thought, no joy, for the evils of the past. As for the gifts which you bring me from your home, carry them rather to Æneas. I tell 25 you, I have stood against the fury of his weapon, and joined hand to hand with him in battle; trust one who knows how strong is his onset as he rises on the shield, how fierce the whirlwind of his hurtling lance. Had Ida’s