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260 Your sire is Mercury, whom of yore

Maia, his radiant mother, bore

In cold Cyllene's air:

But Maia, if report say true,

Her birth from that same Atlas drew

Whose shoulders heaven upbear.

'Tis thus one fountain-head contains

The stream that flows in either's veins.

Thus armed, I made no first essay

By embassies to sound the way:

My life I jeopardied, my own,

And came in person to your

The Daunian hunts us as his prey,

Your own inveterate foe:

If us they banish, nought, they say,

Shall save Hespcria from their sway;

The upper sea shall soon obey,

And that which rolls below.

Exchange we friendship: martial powers,

Stout hearts, and practised arms are ours.'

He said. Evander's keen eyes scan

Eyes, features, mien, and all the man:

Then thus he speaks: 'How great my joy

To hail you, bravest son of Troy!

How truly, fondly I recall

Anchises' look, voice, language, all!

I mind, when Priam came to see

His sister's realm, Hesione,

On to Arcadia's bounds he passed

And breathed our cold inclement blast.

A boy was I, a stripling lad,

My cheek with youth's first blossom clad;

I gazed at Priam and his train

Of Trojan lords, and gazed again: