No More Learning

Then Aeneas in courteous words addresses the King:

'Best of the Grecian race, thou whom fortune hath willed that I
supplicate, holding before me boughs dressed in fillets, no fear stayed
me because thou wert a Grecian chief and an Arcadian, or allied by
descent to the twin sons of Atreus. Nay, mine own prowess and the
sanctity of divine oracles, our ancestral kinship, and the fame of thee
that is spread abroad over the earth, have allied me to thee and led me
willingly on the path of fate. Dardanus, who sailed to the Teucrian
land, the first father and founder of the Ilian city, was born, as
Greeks relate, of Electra the Atlantid; Electra's sire is ancient Atlas,
whose shoulder sustains the heavenly spheres. Your father is Mercury,
whom white Maia conceived and bore on the cold summit of Cyllene; but
Maia, if we give any credence to report, is daughter of Atlas, that same
Atlas who bears up the starry heavens; so both our families branch from
a single blood. In this confidence I sent no embassy, I framed no crafty
overtures; myself I have presented mine own person, and come a suppliant
to thy courts. The same Daunian race pursues us and thee in merciless
warfare; we once expelled, they trust nothing will withhold them from
laying all Hesperia wholly beneath their yoke, and holding the seas that
wash it above and below. Accept and return our friendship. We can give
brave hearts in war, high souls and men approved in deeds. '

Aeneas ended. The other ere now scanned in a long gaze the face and eyes
and all the form of the speaker; then thus briefly returns:

'How gladly, bravest of the Teucrians, do I hail and [155-188]own thee!
how I recall thy father's words and the very tone and glance of great
Anchises! For I remember how Priam son of Laomedon, when he sought
Salamis on his way to the realm of his sister Hesione, went on to visit
the cold borders of Arcadia. Then early youth clad my cheeks with bloom.
I admired the Teucrian captains, admired their lord, the son of
Laomedon; but Anchises moved high above them all. My heart burned with
youthful passion to accost him and clasp hand in hand; I made my way to
him, and led him eagerly to Pheneus' high town.
Departing he gave me an
adorned quiver and Lycian arrows, a scarf inwoven with gold, and a pair
of golden bits that now my Pallas possesses. Therefore my hand is
already joined in the alliance you seek, and soon as to-morrow's dawn
rises again over earth, I will send you away rejoicing in mine aid, and
supply you from my store. Meanwhile, since you are come hither in
friendship, solemnise with us these yearly rites which we may not defer,
and even now learn to be familiar at your comrades' board. '

This said, he commands the feast and the wine-cups to be replaced whence
they were taken, and with his own hand ranges them on the grassy seat,
and welcomes Aeneas to the place of honour, with a lion's shaggy fell
for cushion and a hospitable chair of maple. Then chosen men with the
priest of the altar in emulous haste bring roasted flesh of bulls, and
pile baskets with the gift of ground corn, and serve the wine. Aeneas
and the men of Troy with him feed on the long chines of oxen and the
entrails of the sacrifice.

After hunger is driven away and the desire of food stayed, King Evander
speaks: 'No idle superstition that knows not the gods of old hath
ordered these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of
august sanctity; saved from bitter perils, O Trojan guest, do we
worship, and [189-225]most due are the rites we inaugurate. Look now
first on this overhanging cliff of stone, where shattered masses lie
strewn, and the mountain dwelling stands desolate, and rocks are rent
away in vast ruin. Here was a cavern, awful and deep-withdrawn,
impenetrable to the sunbeams, where the monstrous half-human shape of
Cacus had his hold: the ground was ever wet with fresh slaughter, and
pallid faces of men, ghastly with gore, hung nailed on the haughty
doors. This monster was the son of Vulcan, and spouted his black fires
from his mouth as he moved in giant bulk. To us also in our desire time
bore a god's aid and arrival. For princely Alcides the avenger came
glorious in the spoils of triple Geryon slain; this way the Conqueror
drove the huge bulls, and his oxen filled the river valley. But savage
Cacus, infatuate to leave nothing undared or unhandled in craft or
crime, drives four bulls of choice shape away from their pasturage, and
as many heifers of excellent beauty. And these, that there should be no
straightforward footprints, he dragged by the tail into his cavern, the
track of their compelled path reversed, and hid them behind the screen
of rock. No marks were there to lead a seeker to the cavern. Meanwhile
the son of Amphitryon, his herds filled with food, was now breaking up
his pasturage and making ready to go.