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So many seas round shores spread wide
Beneath thy conduct have I tried,
Massylian tribes, the ends of earth,
And climes which Libyan sands engirth;
Now scarce at last we lay our hand
On Italy's receding land:
Suffice it, Troy's malignant star
Has followed on our path thus far!
You too, ye Gods, may now forbear
And these our hapless relics spare,
Whom Ilium in her prosperous hour
Affronted with o'er-weening power.
And thou, dread maiden, who canst see
The vision of the things to be,
Vouchsafe the boon for which I sue—
My fates demand no lighter due—
That Troy and Troy's lorn gods may find
In Latium rest from wave and wind.
Then to thy patron gods a fane
Of solid marble's purest grain
My hand shall build, and festal days
Preserve in life Apollo's praise.
Thee too in that my promised state
August observances await:
For there thy words I will enshrine
Delivered to my race and line,
And chosen ministers ordain,
Custodians of the sacred strain.
But O commit not, I implore,
To faithless leaves thy precious lore,
Lest by the wind's wild eddies tost
Abroad they fly, their sequence lost.
Thyself the prophecy declare.'
He said, and speaking closed his prayer.