Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/249

And plumy cones from helmets shorn,
And beaks from vanquished vessels torn,
And darts, and bucklers sheen.
There with his bowed augurial wand
And scanty robe with purple band,
The sacred buckler in his hand,
Sat Picus, horseman king,
Who stirred of old the jealous flame
Of Circe, wonder-working dame,
And by her potent drugs became
A bird of dappled wing.
Such was the fane within whose walls
The king enthroned the Trojans calls,
And, thronging round him as they stand,
With tranquil mien accosts the band:

'Say, Dardans, for we know your name,
Nor sail ye hither strange to Fame,
What need has power to waft you o'er
Such length of seas to this our shore?
If stress of wind, or way mista'en,
Or other suffering on the main,
Has made you thread our stream, and moor
Your vessels from its pleasant shore,
Disdain not this our Latin cheer,
But know the race to Saturn dear,
Not righteous by constraint or fear,
But freely virtuous, self-controlled
By memory of the age of gold.
Aye, now I mind, in earlier day
Auruncan elders wont to say
'Twas hence that Dardanus your king
For Phrygian land of old took wing,
And reached the towns at Ida's base
And northern Samos, styled of Thrace: