"Ah!" cries Iulus, "so today we eat up board and all." 'Twas all his jest-word; but its sound their labour slew at last, And swift his father caught it up, as from his mouth it passed, And stayed him, by the might of God bewildered utterly. 119 Then forthwith: "Hail," he cried, "O land that Fate hath owed to me! And ye, O House-gods of our Troy, hail ye, O true and kind! This is your house, this is your land: my father, as I mind, Such secrets of the deeds of Fate left me in days of yore: 'O son, when hunger driveth thee stranded on outland shore To eat the very boards beneath thy victual scant at need, There hope for house, O weary one, and in that place have heed To set hand first unto the roof, and heap the garth around.' So this will be that hunger-tide: this waited us to bound Our wasting evils at the last. So come, and let us joyfully upon the first of dawn 130 Seek out the land, what place it is, what men-folk there abide, And where their city; diversely leaving the haven-side. But now pour out the bowls to Jove, send prayer upon the way To sire Anchises, and the wine again on table lay." He spake, and with the leafy bough his temples garlanded, And to the Spirit of the Soil forthwith the prayer he said, To Earth, the eldest-born of Gods, to Nymphs, to Streams unknown As yet: he called upon the Night, and night-tide's signs new shown; Idæan Jove, the Phrygian Queen, the Mother, due and well He called on; and his parents twain in Heaven and in Hell. 140 But thrice the Almighty Father then from cloudless heaven on high Gave thunder, showing therewithal the glory of his sky All burning with the golden gleam, and shaken by his hand. Then sudden rumour ran abroad amid the Trojan band, That now the day was come about their fateful walls to raise; So eagerly they dight the feast, gladdened by omen's grace, And bring the beakers forth thereto and garland well the wine. But when the morrow's lamp of dawn across the earth 'gan shine, The shore, the fields, the towns of folk they search, wide scattering: And here they come across the pools of that Numician spring: 150 This is the Tiber-flood; hereby the hardy Latins dwell. But therewithal Anchises' seed from out them chose him well An hundred sweet-mouthed men to go unto the walls renowned, Where dwelt the king, and every one with Pallas' olive crowned, To carry gifts unto the lord and peace for Teucrians pray. So, bidden, nought they tarry now, but swift-foot wear the way. But he himself marks out the walls with shallow ditch around, And falls to work upon the shore his first abode to found, In manner of a camp, begirt with bank and battlement.