"O Nymphs, Laurentian Nymphs, from whence the race of rivers springs, And thou, O father Tiber fair, with holy wanderings, Cherish Æneas; thrust from me the bitter following bane, What pool soe'er may nurse thy spring, O pityer of my pain, From whatso land, O loveliest, thy stream may issue forth. For ever will I give thee gifts, and worship well thy worth, Horned river, of all Westland streams the very king and lord; Only be with me; faster bind thy great God-uttered word." Thus having said, two twi-banked keels he chooseth from the fleet, And mans the oars and dights his folk with gear and weapons meet. 80 But lo meanwhile a wondrous sign is thrust before his eyes; For on the green-sward of the wood a snow-white sow there lies Down by the strand, her little ones, like-hued, about her pressed; Whom god-loving Æneas slays to thee, O mightiest, O Juno, at thine altar-fires hallowing both dam and brood. Now while the long night wore away, the swelling of his flood Had Tiber soothed, and eddying back in peace the stream was stayed, And in the manner of a mere the water's face was laid, Or as a pool, that so the oars unstrained their work may ply. So now they speed their journey forth amid a happy cry; 90 The oiled fir slips along the seas, the waves fall wondering then,-- The woods, unused, fall wondering sore to see the shields of men Shine far up stream; to see the keels bepainted swimming there: But day and night, with beat of oars, the watery way they wear, And conquer reaches long, o'erlaid with many a shifting tree, And cleave the forest fair and green along the waveless sea. Unto the midmost crown of heaven had climbed the fiery sun, By then the walls, and far-off burg, and few roofs one by one They see; the place raised high as heaven by mightiness of Rome, Where in those days Evander had an unrich, scanty home: 100 So thither swift they turned their prows, and toward the city drew. That day it chanced the Arcadian King did yearly honour do Unto Amphitryon's mighty son, and on the God did call In grove before the city-walls: Pallas, his son, withal, The battle-lords, the senate poor of that unwealthy folk Cast incense there; with yet warm blood the altars were a-smoke. But when they saw the tall ships glide amidst the dusky shade Of woody banks, and might of men on oars all silent laid, Scared at the sudden sight they rise, and all the boards forsake: But Pallas, of the hardy heart, forbids the feast to break, 110 While he, with weapon caught in haste, flies forth to meet the men, And crieth from a mound afar: "Fellows, what drave you then? And whither wend ye on your ways by road untried before? What folk and from what home are ye? and is it peace or war?"