But Heaven's high fate, with stern command,
Impelled us still to this your land.
Here Dardanus was born, and here
Apollo bids our race return:
To Tyrrhene Tiber points the seer
And pure Numicius' hallowed urn.
These presents too our hands convey,
Scant relics of a happier day,
From burning Ilium snatched away.
From this bright gold before the shrine
His sire Anchises poured the wine:
With these adornments Priam sate
'Mid gathering crowds in kingly state,
The sceptre and the diadem:
Troy's women wrought the vesture's hem."
The king muses thoughtfully for a while: but he recognises the fulfilment of the auguries. Let Æneas come—he is welcome. If this be the bridegroom sent by heaven, he shall be more welcome still. He sends back the ambassadors in right royal fashion, all mounted on choice horses from his own stud, and with a chariot of honour to convey their chief to an interview.
Juno's relentless hatred is stirred once more. Will neither fire nor sword kill, nor water drown, these accursed Trojans? Shall she, the Queen of Heaven, be baffled by a mortal like Æneas? If it be written in the fates that he is to wed Lavinia, her marriage-dower shall be paid in Trojan and Latian blood. Venus shall find that she, like Hecuba, has borne a firebrand—that Æneas, like Paris, shall light a flame that shall consume his nation. If the powers of heaven will not take her part, she will seek aid from
