So passed my night, and such was my return to my comrades. Arrived there, I find with wonder their band swelled by a vast multitude of new companions, matrons and warriors both, an army mustered for exile, a crowd of the wretched. From every side they were met, prepared in heart as in fortune to follow me over the sea to any land where I might take them to settle. And now the morning star was rising over Ida's loftiest ridge with the day in its train--Danaan sentinels were blocking up the entry of the gates, and no hope of succor appeared. I retired at last, took up my father, and made for the mountains. Conington. Thus simply ends the thrilling story of the Trojan War, told by one who was himself an active participant in those mighty deeds. It passes from turbulent action to pathetic rest like the tired sobbing of a child which has cried itself to sleep. The banquet-hall of Dido has remained throughout this recital in breathless silence, and now a long sigh of relief from the strained tension of passionate sympathy breathes along the couches. After an impressive pause, during which no word is spoken, Æneas resumes his story and tells of the seven years of wandering over the sea in search of the land that fate has promised him. With his little fleet of vessels, built at the foot of Ida, he touches first at a point in Thrace, intending to found a city there; but he is warned away by a horrible portent. He touches next at Delos, and implores the sacred oracle for a word of guidance to his destined home. To this prayer the oracle makes answer by a voice wafted from the inner shrine, while the whole place rocks and trembles: Sons of Dardanus, strong to endure, the land which first gave you birth from your ancestral tree, the same land shall welcome you back, restored to its fruitful bosom; seek for your old mother till you find her. There it is that the house of Æneas shall set up a throne over all nations, they, and their children's children, and those that shall yet come after. Conington. So it is "Ho, for the mother-land!" But where is that? Whence sprang the Trojans? Here old Anchises, father of Æneas, rich in the lore of old tradition, says: