just so the Rutulian scans wall and camp with kindling wrath; grief fires the marrow of his iron bones—how to essay an entrance? what way to dash the prisoned Trojans from the rampart and fling them forth on level ground? Close to the camp's side was lying the fleet, 5 shored round by earthworks and by the river; this he assails, calling for fire to his exulting mates, and filling his hand with a blazing pine, himself all aglow. Driven on by Turnus' presence, they double their efforts: each soldier of the band equips himself with his murky torch. See, 10 they have stripped the hearths: the smoking brand sends up a pitchy glare, and the Fire-god wafts clouds of soot and flame heaven-high.
What god, ye Muses, shielded the Teucrians from a fire so terrible? who warded off from the ships so vast a conflagration? 15 Tell me; the faith in the tale is old, but its fame is evergreen.
In early days, when Æneas in Phrygian Ida was first fashioning his fleet and making ready for the high seas, the great mother of the gods, they say, the Berecyntian 20 queen, thus addressed almighty Jove: "Grant, my son, to thy mother's prayer the boon she asks thee on thy conquest of Olympus. A pine-forest is mine, endeared by the love of many years, a sacred grove on the mountain's height, whither worshippers brought their offerings, bedarkened 25 with black pitch-trees and trunks of maple: these I was fain to give to the youth of Dardany when he needed a fleet; now my anxious heart is wrung by disturbing fears. Release me from my dread, and let a mother's prayer avail thus much: let them be overcome 30 by no strain of voyage, no violence of wind; give them good of their birth on my sacred hill." To her replied her son, who wields the starry sphere: "O mother, whither wouldst thou wrest the course of fate? what askest thou for these thy favourites? should vessels framed by mortal 35 hand have charter of immortality? should Æneas, himself assured, meet perils all unsure? What god had ever privilege so great? Nay, rather, when their service is
