Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/109

 the visitation of monstrous portents, yet see not what cause produces the sound. For there was no starlight, no sky, bright with a heaven of constellations, but the firmament was dim and murky, and dead night was keeping the moon in a prison of storm-clouds. 5

"And now the next day was breaking in early dawn, and Aurora had drawn off the dewy shadow from the sky, when suddenly from the woods comes forth the strange figure of a man unknown, in piteous trim—a picture completed by Famine's master-stroke, and     10 stretches his hands in supplication to the shore. We look back: there was filth to make us shudder, a length of beard, a covering fastened with thorns; yet the rest betokened a Greek, who had once been sent to Troy in the army of his nation. As for him, when he saw from      15 afar the dress of Dardan land and the arms of Troy, for a moment he faltered, scared by the sight, and checked his steps; soon he ran headlong to the shore, crying and praying: 'By the stars I adjure you, by the powers above, by this blessed light of heaven we breathe, take      20 me with you, Teucrians; carry me off to any land you will; this will be enough. I know I am one of the Danaan crews; I own that I carried war into your Trojan homes; for which, if the guilt of my crime is so black, fling me piecemeal to the waves, drown me deep in the great sea. 25 If I am to die, there will be pleasure in dying by the hands of men.' His speech was over, and he was clinging about us, clasping our knees, and writhing round them. We encourage him to tell us who he is, of what race sprung, to reveal what fortune has since made him its sport. My     30 father, Anchises, after no long pause, himself gives his hand to the youth, and reassures him by the powerful pledge. He at length lays aside his fear, and speaks as follows:—

"'I come from Ithaca, a comrade of the ill-starred     35 Ulysses, my name Achemenides. I went to Troy, leaving my father, Adamastus, who was poor. Would that his lot had remained mine! Here, in their hurry to leave