Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/61

 the fate of the Trojan city, and your name, and the Pelasgian princes. Foe as he was, he would always extol the Teucrians with signal praise, and profess that he himself came of the ancient Teucrian stock. Come then, brave men, and make our dwellings your home. 5 I, too, have had a fortune like yours, which, after the buffeting of countless sufferings, has been pleased that I should find rest in this land at last. Myself no stranger to sorrow, I am learning[o] to succour the unhappy." With these words, at the same moment she ushers               10 Æneas into her queenly palace, and orders a solemn sacrifice at the temples of the gods. Meantime, as if this were nought, she sends to his comrades at the shore twenty bulls, a hundred huge swine with backs all bristling, a hundred fat lambs with their mothers, and the                15 wine-god's jovial bounty.

But the palace within is laid out with all the splendour of regal luxury, and in the centre of the mansion they are making ready for the banquet; the coverlets are embroidered and of princely purple—on the tables is massy                  20 silver, and chased on gold the gallant exploits of Tyrian ancestors, a long, long chain of story, derived through hero after hero ever since the old nation was young.

Æneas, for his fatherly love would not leave his heart at rest, sends on Achates with speed to the ships to tell Ascanius    25 the news and conduct him to the city. On Ascanius all a fond parent's anxieties are centred. Presents, moreover, rescued from the ruins of Ilion, he bids him bring—a pall stiff with figures of gold, and a veil with a border of yellow acanthus,[o] adornments of Argive               30 Helen,[o] which she carried away from Mycenæ, when she went to Troy and to her unblessed bridal, her mother Leda's marvellous gift; the sceptre, too, which Ilione had once borne, the eldest of Priam's daughters, and the string of pearls for the neck, and the double coronal of           35 jewels and gold. With this to despatch, Achates was bending his way to the ships.

But the lady of Cythera is casting new wiles, new devices