Then Saturn's son, the sea-tamer, gave forth such words as these: "'Tis utter right, O Cytherean, to trust thee to my seas, 800 Whence thou wert born; and I myself deserve no less; e'en I, Who oft for thee refrain the rage of maddened sea and sky. Nor less upon the earth my care Æneas did embrace; Xanthus and Simoïs witness it!--When, following up the chace, The all-unheartened host of Troy 'gainst Troy Achilles bore, And many a thousand gave to death; choked did the rivers roar Nor any way might Xanthus find to roll his flood to sea: Æneas then in hollow cloud I caught away, when he Would meet Pelides' might with hands and Gods not strong enow. Yea, that was when from lowest base I wrought to overthrow 810 The walls of that same Troy forsworn my very hands had wrought. And now cast all thy fear away, my mind hath shifted nought; Avernus' haven shall he reach, e'en as thou deemest good, And one alone of all his folk shall seek amidst the flood; One head shall pay for all the rest." So when these words had brought to peace the Goddess' joyful heart, The Father yokes his steeds with gold, and bridles the wild things With o'erfoamed bit, and loose in hand the rein above them flings, And light in coal-blue car he flies o'er topmost of the sea: The waves sink down, the heaped main lays his waters peacefully 820 Before the thunder of his wheels; from heaven all cloud-flecks fail. Lo, diverse bodies of his folk; lo, many a mighty whale; And Glaucus' ancient fellowship, Palæmon Ino's son, And Tritons swift, and all the host that Phorcus leadeth on; Maid Panopea and Melite, Cymodoce the fair, Nesæa, Spio, and Thalia, with Thetis leftward bear.