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And sent at last from heaven above
The wished-for tokens of his love.
Hear and obey the counsel sage
Bestowed by Nautes' reverend age:
Picked youths, the bravest of the brave,
Be these your comrades o'er the wave,
For haughty are the tribes and rude
That Latium has to be subdued.
But ere you yet confront the foe,
First seek the halls of Dis below,
Pass deep Avernus' vale, and meet
Your father in his own retreat.
Not Tartarus' prison-house of crime
Detains me, nor the mournful shades:
My home is in the Elysian clime,
With righteous souls, 'mid happy glades.
The virgin Sibyl with the gore
Of sable sheep shall ope the door.
Then shall you learn your future line,
And what the walls the fates assign.
And now farewell: dew-sprinkled Night
Has scaled Olympus' topmost height:
I catch their panting breath from far,
The steeds of Morning's cruel star.'
He said, and vanished out of sight,
Like thinnest smoke, and mixed with night;
While 'Whither now?' Æneas cries:
'What makes thee hurry thus apace?
Whom fliest thou? what constraint denies
A father to his son's embrace?'
With that he wakes the slumbering fire,
Adores the home-god of his sire,
And worships Vesta's awful power
With frankincense and wheaten flour.