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Rh So many seas round shores spread wide

Beneath thy conduct have I tried,

Massylian tribes, the ends of earth,

And climes which Libyan sands engirth;

Now scarce at last we lay our hand

On Italy's receding land:

Suffice it, Troy's malignant star

Has followed on our path thus far!

You too, ye Gods, may now forbear

And these our hapless relics spare,

Whom Ilium in her prosperous hour

Affronted with o'er-weening power.

And thou, dread maiden, who canst see

The vision of the things to be,

Vouchsafe the boon for which I sue—

My fates demand no lighter due—

That Troy and Troy's lorn gods may find

In Latium rest from wave and wind.

Then to thy patron gods a fane

Of solid marble's purest grain

My hand shall build, and festal days

Preserve in life Apollo's praise.

Thee too in that my promised state

August observances await:

For there thy words I will enshrine

Delivered to my race and line,

And chosen ministers ordain,

Custodians of the sacred strain.

But O commit not, I implore,

To faithless leaves thy precious lore,

Lest by the wind's wild eddies tost

Abroad they fly, their sequence lost.

Thyself the prophecy declare.'

He said, and speaking closed his prayer.