1 Do you now convey in answer my message to your King.
2 Latinus the King, now growing old, ruled in a long peace over quiet tilth and town.
3 Let this be the union, this the bridal that Venus' illustrious progeny and Latinus the King shall celebrate.
4 What he will rear on these foundations, what issue of battle he desires, if Fortune attend him, lies clearer to his own sight than to King Turnus or King Latinus.
5 This the pestilent goddess spreads abroad in the mouths of men, and bends her course right on to King Iarbas, and with her words fires his spirit and swells his wrath.
6 From Jove hath our race beginning; in Jove the men of Dardania rejoice as ancestor; our King himself of Jove's supreme race, Aeneas of Troy, hath sent us to thy courts.
7 King, Faunus' illustrious progeny, neither hath black tempest driven us with stress of waves to shelter in your lands, nor hath star or shore misled us on the way we went.
8 Nor does the embroidered purple so move the King, nor the sceptre of Priam, as his daughter's marriage and the bridal chamber absorb him, and the oracle of ancient Faunus stirs deep in his heart.
9 But the King, troubled by the omen, visits the oracle of his father Faunus the soothsayer, and the groves deep under Albunea, where, queen of the woods, she echoes from her holy well, and breathes forth a dim and deadly vapour.
10 They marched in even time, singing their King; as whilome snowy swans among the thin clouds, when they return from pasturage, and utter resonant notes through their long necks; far off echoes the river and the smitten Asian fen.
11 So, for the stain of the broken peace, he orders his chief warriors to march on King Latinus, and bids prepare for battle, to defend Italy and drive the foe from their borders; himself will suffice for Trojans and Latins together.
12 Furthermore there came, sent by King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath.
13 Lo, Dardanian shepherds meanwhile dragged clamorously before the King a man with hands tied behind his back, who to compass this very thing, to lay Troy open to the Achaeans, had gone to meet their ignorant approach, confident in spirit and doubly prepared to spin his snares or to meet assured death.
14 Trinacrians and Trojans hung in astonishment, praying to the heavenly powers; neither did great Aeneas reject the omen, but embraces glad Acestes and loads him with lavish gifts, speaking thus: 'Take, my lord: for the high King of heaven by these signs hath willed thee to draw the lot of peculiar honour.'
15 Venulus too is sent to the town of mighty Diomede to seek succour, to instruct him that Teucrians set foot in Latium; that Aeneas in his fleet invades them with the vanquished gods of his home, and proclaims himself the King summoned of fate; that many tribes join the Dardanian, and his name swells high in Latium.
16 After hunger is driven away and the desire of food stayed, King Evander speaks: 'No idle superstition that knows not the gods of old hath ordered these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of august sanctity; saved from bitter perils, O Trojan guest, do we worship, and most due are the rites we inaugurate.'
17 Before the city boys and men in their early bloom exercise on horseback, and break in their teams on the dusty ground, or draw ringing bows, or hurl tough javelins from the shoulder, and contend in running and boxing: when a messenger riding forward brings news to the ears of the aged King that mighty men are come thither in unknown raiment.
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