o gain.
There too were dight in cedar old the sires of ancient line
For there was fashioned Italus, and he who set the vine,
Sabinus, holding yet in hand the image of the hook;
And Saturn old, and imaging of Janus' double look, 180
Stood in the porch; and many a king was there from ancient tide,
Who in their country's battle erst the wounds of Mars would bide:
And therewithal were many arms hung on the holy door.
There hung the axes crooked-horned, and taken wains of war,
And crested helms, and bolts and locks that city-gates had borne;
And spears and shields, and thrusting-beaks from ships of battle torn.
There with Quirinus' crooked staff, girt in the shortened gown,
With target in his left hand held, was Picus set adown,--
The horse-tamer, whom Circe fair, caught with desire erewhile,
Smote with that golden rod of hers, and, sprinkling venom's guile, 190
Made him a fowl, and colours fair blent on his shifting wings.

In such a temple of the Gods, in such a house of kings,
Latinus sat when he had called those Teucrian fellows in,
And from his quiet mouth and grave such converse did begin:
"What seek ye, sons of Dardanus? for not unknown to me
Is that your city or your blood; and how ye crossed the sea,
That have I heard. But these your ships, what counsel or what lack
Hath borne them to Ausonian strand o'er all the blue sea's back?
If ye have strayed from out your course, or, driven by stormy tide
(For such things oft upon the sea must seafarers abide), 200
Have entered these our river-banks in haven safe to lie,
Flee not our welcome, nor unknown the Latin folk pass by;
The seed of Saturn, bound to right by neither law nor chain,
But freely following in the ways whereof the God was fain.
Yea now indeed I mind a tale, though now with years outworn,
How elders of Aurunce said that mid these fields was born
That Dardanus, who reached at last the Phrygian Ida's walls,
And Thracian Samos, that the world now Samothracia calls:
From Tuscan stead of Corythus he went upon his ways;
Whose throne is set in golden heaven, the star-besprinkled place, 210
Who adds one other to the tale of altared deities."

He ended, but Ilioneus followed in words like these:
"O king, O glorious Faunus' child, no storm upon the main
Drave us amid the drift of wa