stands at stare all marvelling, and beholds
Her going forth; how kingly cloak of purple dye enfolds
Her shining shoulders, how the clasp of gold knots up her hair,
And how a quiver Lycian-wrought the Queen herself doth bear,
And shepherd's staff of myrtle-wood steel-headed to a spear.

BOOK VIII.

ARGUMENT.

THE LATINS SEEK HELP OF DIOMEDE, AND AENEAS OF EVANDER, TO WHOM HE GOETH
AS A GUEST. VENUS CAUSETH VULCAN TO FORGE ARMOUR AND WEAPONS FOR HER SON
AENEAS.

When Turnus from Laurentum's burg the battle-sign upreared,
When with their voices hard and shrill the gathering trumpets blare,
When he had stirred his war-steeds on and clashed his weed of war,
All troubled were the minds of men, and midst of tumult sore
All Latium swore the battle oath, and rage of men outbroke;
Messapus then, and Ufens great, the dukes of warring folk,
Mezentius, scorner of the Gods, these drive from every side
The folk to war, and waste the fields of tillers far and wide.
And Venulus is sent withal to Diomedes' town
To pray for aid, and tell him how the Teucrians are come down 10
On Latium: how AEneas comes with ship-host, carrying
His vanquished House-Gods, calling him the Fate-ordained King;
How many a folk of Italy hath joined the Dardan lord,
How that his name in Latin land is grown a mighty word--
'What thing the man will build from this, what way the prize of fight,
If Fortune aid him he shall turn--through this thou see'st more light
Than cometh to King Turnus yet or King Latinus eyes.

So goes the world in Latium now, and noting how all lies,
The Trojan hero drifts adown a mighty tide of care,
And hither now his swift thought speeds, now thither bids it fare, 20
And sends it diversely about by every way to slip:
As quivering light of water is in brazen vessel's lip,
Smit by the sun, or casting back the image of the moon.
It flitteth all about the place, and rising upward soon
Smiteth the fashioned ceiling spread beneath the tiling steep.

Night fell, and over all the world the earthly slumber deep
Held weary things, the fowl of air, the cattle of the wold,
And on the bank beneath the crown of heaven waxen cold,
Father AEneas, all his heart with woeful war oppressed,
Lay stretched along and gave his limbs the tardy meed of rest: 30
When lo, between the poplar-lea