Now reddened all the sea with rays, and from the heavenly plain The golden-hued Aurora shone amidst her rosy wain, Then fell the winds and every air sank down in utter sleep, And now the shaven oars must strive amid the sluggish deep: Therewith Æneas sees a wood rise from the water's face, And there it is the Tiber's flood amidst a pleasant place, 30 With many a whirling eddy swift and yellowing with sand Breaks into sea; and diversely above on either hand The fowl that love the river-bank and haunt the river-bed Sweetened the air with plenteous song and through the thicket fled. So there Æneas bids his folk shoreward their bows to lay, And joyfully he entereth in the stream's o'ershadowed way. To aid, Erato! while I tell what kings, what deedful tide, What manner life, in Latin land did anciently abide When first the stranger brought his ships to that Ausonian shore; Yea help me while I call aback beginnings of the war. 40 O Goddess, hearten thou thy seer! dread war my song-speech saith: It tells the battle in array, and kings full fain of death, The Tyrrhene host, all Italy, spurred on the sword to bear: Yea, greater matters are afoot, a mightier deed I stir. The king Latinus, old of days, ruled o'er the fields' increase, And cities of the people there at rest in long-drawn peace: Of Faunus and Laurentian nymph, Marica, do we learn That he was born: but Faunus came of Picus, who must turn To thee, O Saturn, for his sire: 'twas he that blood began. Now, as God would, this king had got no son to grow a man, 50 For he who first had dawned on him in earliest youth had waned: A daughter only such a house, so great a world sustained, Now ripe for man, the years fulfilled that made her meet for bed: And her much folk of Latin land were fain enow to wed, And all Ausonia: first of whom, and fairest to be seen, Was Turnus, great from fathers great; and him indeed the queen Was fain of for her son-in-law with wondrous love of heart: But dreadful portents of the Gods the matter thrust apart. Amidmost of the inner house a laurel-tree upbore Its hallowed leaves, that fear of God had kept through years of yore: 60 Father Latinus first, they said, had found it there, when he Built there his burg and hallowed it to Phoebus' deity, And on Laurentian people thence the name thereof had laid; On whose top now the gathered bees, O wondrous to be said! Borne on with mighty humming noise amid the flowing air, Had settled down, and foot to foot all interwoven there, In sudden swarm they hung adown from off the leafy bough. But straight the seer cries out: "Ah me! I see him coming now, The stranger man; I see a host from that same quarter come To this same quarter, to be lords amidst our highest home." 70