Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/98

74 Come then: let heaven direct our feet:

Appease the winds, and sail for Crete.

It lies not far: be Jove at hand,

The third day's sun shall see us land.'

He spoke, and rendering each his due,

The victims at the altars slew,

A bull to Neptune, and a bull

To thee, Apollo bright,

A lamb to Tempest, black of wool,

To Western winds a white.

Idomeneus, we hear, has flown,

Driven from his home in Cretan land:

Fame tells us of an empty throne

And mansions ready to our hand.

Ortygia left, we skim the deeps

By Naxos' Bacchanalian steeps,

Olearos and Donysa green,

And Parian cliffs of dazzling sheen,

Pass Cyclad isles o'er ocean strown,

And seas with many a land thick sown.

The rowers sing merrily as we go,

'For Crete and our forefathers, ho!'

Fair winds escort us o'er the tide,

And soon 'neath Cretan coasts we glide.

The site determined, I lay down

The groundwork of my infant town,

Its name Pergamia call,

And bid the nation, proud to own

That title, guard their loved hearthstone,

And raise the fortress wall.

High on the beach their ships they draw,

Then take them wives, and till the land,

The while with equitable hand

I portion dwelling-place and law,