teth now,
First-born of years, first lord of rule, with little joyful brow.

Hereon the men come back again from that AEtolian wall
He biddeth tell their errand's speed, what answers did befall, 240
Each in their order: thereupon for speech was silence made,
And Venulus, obeying him, suchwise began and said:

"Friends, we have looked on Diomede and on the Argive home,
And all the road and every hap thereby have overcome:
Yea, soothly, we have touched the hand that wracked the Ilian earth:
Argyripa he buildeth there, named from his land of birth,
In Iapygian Garganus, where he hath conquered place.
Where, entered in, and leave being given to speak before his face,
We gave our gifts, and told our names, and whence of lands we were,
Who waged us war, and for what cause to Arpi we must fare. 250
He hearkened and from quiet mouth gave answer thus again:

"'O happy folk of Saturn's land, time-old Ausonian men,
What evil hap hath turmoiled you amid your peaceful life,
Beguiling you to stir abroad the doubtfulness of strife?
All we who on the Ilian fields with sword-edge compassed guilt,
--Let be the war-ills we abode before the wall high built;
Let be the men whom Simois hides--we o'er the wide world driven,
Have wrought out pain and punishment for ill deed unforgiven,
Till Priam's self might pity us. Witness the star of bane
Minerva sent; Euboea's cliffs, Caphereus' vengeful gain! 260
'Scaped from that war, and driven away to countries sundered wide,
By Proteus' Pillars exiled now, must Menelaues bide;
And those AEtnaean Cyclop-folk Ulysses look upon:
Of Pyrrhus's land why tell, or of Idomeneus, that won
To ruined house; of Locrian men cast on the Libyan shore?
Mycenae's lord, the duke and king of all the Argive war,
There, on the threshold of his house, his wicked wife doth slay.
--Asia o'ercome--and in its stead Adultery thwart the way!--
Ah, the Gods' hate, that so begrudged my yearning eyes to meet
My father's hearth, my longed-for wife, and Calydon the sweet! 270
Yea, and e'en now there followeth me dread sight of woeful things:
My lost companions wend the air with feathery beat of wings,
Or wander, fowl on river-floods: O woe's me for their woe!
The voices of their weeping wail about the sea-cliffs go.
But all these things might I ha