Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/193

 world, far as the two oceans which the sun surveys in his daily round, revolving beneath them and wielded by their control." Such was the response of father Faunus, the counsel given at still of night: nor does Latinus hold it shut in the prison of his own lips; but Fame had flown        5 with the rumour through Ausonia far and wide from city to city, when the young chivalry of old Laomedon anchored their ships on the river's grassy bank.

Æneas and his chief captains, and Iulus young and fair, lay their limbs to rest under the boughs of a lofty tree;          10 there they spread the banquet, putting cakes of flour along the sward to support the food—such was Jove's high inspiration—and rearing on the wheaten foundation a pile of wilding fruits. It chanced that when the rest was eaten, the want of meat forced them to ply their tooth on those           15 scanty gifts of Ceres—to profane with venturous hand and mouth the sanctity of the cake's fated circle, nor respect the square impressed on its surface. "What! eating our tables[o] as well?" cries Iulus, in his merry vein; that and no more. That utterance first told the hearers that their            20 toils were over: even as it fell from the boy's mouth his father caught it up and broke it short, wondering in himself at the power of Heaven. Then anon: "Hail to thee, promised land of my destiny! hail to you," he cries, "Troy's faithful gods! Yes, here is our home—this our country.           25 It was my father—these, I remember, were the mystic words of fate he left me: 'My son, whenever you are wafted to an unknown coast, and hunger drives you, failing food, to eat your tables, then remember my saying, there look for a home of rest, set up your first roof-tree and strengthen      30 it with mound and rampart.' This was the hunger he meant. This was the last strait in store for us, not the beginning but the end of death. Come then, take heart, and with the morrow's earliest light explore we what is the place, who its dwellers, where the city of the nation,       35 making from the haven in different ways. Meanwhile pour libations to Jove, invoke in prayer my sire Anchises, and set again the wine on the board." So having said, he