'O hasten, father well-beloved, to hang about my neck! Lo, here my shoulders will I stoop, nor of the labour reck. And whatsoever may befall, the two of us shall bide One peril and one heal and end: Iulus by my side 710 Shall wend, and after us my wife shall follow on my feet Ye serving-folk, turn ye your minds these words of mine to meet: Scant from the city is a mound and temple of old tide, Of Ceres' lone, a cypress-tree exceeding old beside. Kept by our fathers' worshipping through many years agone: Thither by divers roads go we to meet at last in one. Now, father, take thy fathers' Gods and holy things to hold, For me to touch them fresh from fight and murder were o'erbold, A misdeed done against the Gods, till in the living flood I make a shift to wash me clean.' 720 I stooped my neck and shoulders broad e'en as the word I said, A forest lion's yellow fell for cloth upon them laid, And took my burden up: my young Iulus by my side, Holding my hand, goes tripping short unto his father's stride; My wife comes after: on we fare amidst a mirky world. And I, erewhile as nothing moved by storm of weapons hurled, I, who the gathering of the Greeks against me nothing feared, Now tremble at each breath of wind, by every sound am stirred, Sore troubled for my fellows both, and burden that I bore. And now we draw anigh the gates, and all the way seemed o'er, 730 When sudden sound of falling feet was borne upon our ears, And therewithal my father cries, as through the dusk he peers, 'Haste, son, and get thee swift away, for they are on us now; I see the glittering of the brass and all their shields aglow.' What Godhead nought a friend to me amidst my terror there Snatched wit away I nothing know: for while I swiftly fare By wayless places, wandering wide from out the road I knew, Creusa, whether her the Fates from me unhappy drew, Whether she wandered from the way, or weary lagged aback, Nought know I, but that her henceforth mine eyes must ever lack. 740 Nor turned I round to find her lost, nor had it in my thought, Till to that mound and ancient house of Ceres we were brought; Where, all being come together now, there lacked but her alone, And there her fellows' hopes, her son's, her husband's were undone.